Institutional Profile The Lighthouse Foundation for disenfranchised young people - Contemporary Nurse: Healthcare Across the Lifespan

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Institutional Profile

The Lighthouse Foundation for disenfranchised young people

Sarah Crome
The Lighthouse Foundation, Melbourne VIC

Susan Barton
The Lighthouse Foundation, Melbourne VIC

PP: 211 - 216

Abstract

The Lighthouse Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to empowering young people to take responsibility for their own lives.

Lighthouse provides long-term care and support within a family style environment, to young people aged between 15 and 22 years, who may otherwise be homeless. There are currently seven homes operating in Victoria.

The Lighthouse model is unique in meeting many of the long-term needs of disadvantaged young people. Emphasis is placed on relationships and community, providing young people with an environment where they are trusted, challenged, and can thrive - intellectually, physically, socially, spiritually and emotionally. A sense of being, and belonging, is encouraged.

The Foundation was established in 1991 to support the work of its founder Susan Barton AM, who has been caring for young people for over 27 years. Susan's experience and success with young people now forms the basis of programs that form the Lighthouse model of care delivery.

Keywords

community health; youth care; social work; empowerment

Article Text

Introduction

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live - Irish Proverb

The Lighthouse program in Melbourne offers a unique environment for disenfranchised young people. Its main goal to engage young people, contain them and provide a home environment that emotionally links to a sense of belonging. This holistic program enables that sense of belonging to operate within the young person and with the community. Each young person is treated as a whole being and all interactions are personalized.

The rationale for the program is that too often young people are systemized and labeled. This can lead to a sense of alienation and despair. The program is therefore targeted to long-term and multi-modal treatment and support. This enables continuity and consistency of care and provides the template for re-parenting and personal development interventions to be applied. As part of this 'connecting activity' that drives all service provision, staff, volunteers, community contributors and patrons become part of a large family/tribe/community. Therefore healing, growth, understanding and mentorship are processes available and integral to everyone, not just the young people.

The Vision

That every child lives within a family environment and community that fosters trust and love and supports young people to grow and develop holistically

The Mission

To reduce homelessness and support tortured and traumatised young people

Goal

Is directed towards supporting disenfranchised and traumatized young people in their journey towards interdependence

Values

The journey rather than the destination
The means rather than the end
How we do things rather than what we want to achieve
The process rather than the product
Who we are rather than who we will be or were

Program Outline

The Lighthouse program offers:

Individual Program Structure.
Long term, stable, supervised rehabilitation in a responsible, accountable, meaningful, engaged, family setting.
Attitudinal change programs where young people reflect and generate their own changes.
Professionals, paraprofessionals and volunteers in the adolescent field who have long term experience in caring for difficult and distressed young people.

The focus at Lighthouse is creating a stable environment based on a family model that provides supervision, love and nurturing that many of these young people have never experienced before in their family of origin. This bonding and fluid boundary is contained by tightly supervised structures that bring with them responsibility and accountability that create unique outcomes and success if sustained over time. This enables the profile of homeless youth to shift and adapt to the emerging local culture that values youth, and takes on board the role of parenting and nurturing.

Resident Profiles

Most of the young people engaged by the Lighthouse Foundation bring with them a complex of challenging behaviours and self-concept deficits that result from:

Physical and domestic violence
Sexual abuse and rape
Neglect and abandonment
Cultic, religious and ritualistic abuse
Third world poverty, war and torture
Adoption breakdown
Struggling families that are financially disadvantaged
Parents' suffering from a significant mental illness
Families with poor parenting skills
Death of parents and/or significant others
Families with significant general health problems
Families involved heavily with drug use
Families involved with major crime
Family rejection based on religious views
Family rejection based sexual preference
Family rejection based on disability (intellectual, mental illness, drug dependency)

Some of the results of these experiences for a young person include:

Mental illness and adjustment disorders (eg. severe personality disorders)
Post traumatic stress disorder and other dissociative conditions
Eating disorders
Anxiety and mood disorders
Psychotic disorders (sometimes drug induced)
Chemical dependency
Dual diagnosis (eg. Mental illness and drug addiction)
Full range of addictive behaviours (eg. gambling, over-eating, promiscuity)
Prostitution
Self-mutilation
Suicidality and para-suicidality
Criminal behaviours (eg. assaults, thefts)
Un-developed life skills
Rebellious and high level risk-taking behaviours
Intellectual disability and physical disability
Nutritional deficiency syndromes

We try to support our young people through a process understanding victimization towards a transformation to a state of empowerment.

Key Components of Delivery

The drivers of service delivery include:

1. Whole person focused

This means day-to-day activities of young people and staff are monitored and program directives are adapted to suite each persons learning needs, learning style and learning ability. The program content spans emotional, cognitive, behavioural and transpersonal parameters. All young people receive flexible individual plans to suit their needs but are developed through consensus of the whole family group.

2. The program embraces a multitude of service options

When young people enter the Lighthouse, it becomes there home. Like any supportive family, many options are provided to service their individual needs. The young people that attach to the Lighthouse family require a full spectrum of life skills support.

3. Program goals and targets are fluid and not 'set in stone'

The bottom line for the program directive is to keep the young person at the Lighthouse House. Day by day, schedules of support, consequences and therapy styles are capable of being shifted in order to accommodate to the nature and speed of change possible for that young person.

4. Program content based on multimodal learning styles Questions we might ask to hone into the preferred learning style include:

Visual - do you doodle when you talk on the phone? Do you speak quickly? Would you rather see a map than hear directions?
Auditory - do you talk to yourself? Do you prefer a lecture of seminar to reading a book?
Kinesthetic - do you think better when you are moving or walking around? Do you gesture a lot whilst speaking? Do you find it hard to sit still?

According to the key style of learning, program components are built and individualized to suit the young person. This includes matching certain staff because of their learning style and personal experiences.

5. Relationship with organization is a permanent fixture (life membership)

When a young person enters the Lighthouse, the relationship is for life. The philosophy is for life, and the young person enrolls in that vision. Even after they have physically moved from a Lighthouse home, they sustain a relationship with the organization as their family.

6. Treatment focus is based on normalization and relationship building (psychotherapy core)

No matter how challenging the behaviours may present to staff, each person is treated simply as another person in a relationship with them. They are not pathologised or labeled as 'odd' or 'deficient'. Parts of their whole being or individual behaviours do not become the target of focus or action. The foundation will focus on what behaviours are pro-social and not reinforce risk behaviours.

7. Interdependency model of interaction

Lighthouse operates in accordance with the fundamental rules of psychological development of the self and the needs of that developing person from childhood to adulthood. Interdependence is based on relying on others in times of learning, fatigue, crisis and teamwork. This can be hard for those that have relied on themselves for survival, when they were in fact ill equipped and not developed sufficiently to do that. Letting go and allowing themselves to need and trust staff is one of the largest developmental tasks of the young people.

8. Psychodynamic and family systems based model/therapeutic community

The program structure is based on essential family dynamics, the developing infant, developmental psychology and the deconstruction of power hierarchies in organizations. Projections of feelings about parents/family/significant others are constantly projected onto staff and these are managed sensitively. Defence structures and their importance at key stages of the life cycle (including the dangers of them) are focused on, and gentle coaching and containing activities are applied to enable the young person to deconstruct those that redundant and reconstruct more effective ones.

Drug and alcohol related behaviours, psychiatric and trauma-base behaviours are targeted daily and gently addressed within a whole-person framework.

9. Program core is based around interpersonal exchange and not economic rationalism

Lighthouse may purchase a product/service for the particular needs of one young person if it means a significant contribution to their personal development is likely. Therapy is ongoing and not finite, even after leaving their house to gain new accommodation, because the philosophy is it takes as long it takes. This enables the fluid boundary to operate. Value is based around the consequences of human interactions in terms of feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling meaningful and feeling a sense of belonging.

10. Caring staff live with young people and their training is multi-dimensional

The carers function in a parental and mentoring role. They are responsible for the day-to-day running of the home and the individual program management of each of their residents. Personal development courses are a core component to the training program in adjunct to professional training in youth work, social work and psychology-based concepts. In Guidance in ethics and compassion form the management team, drives the individual style of support to the carer-in-training. All staff are also linked into Youth Work Certification at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) if not formally qualified.

11. The work place is life-style focused

The family model/tribal model reaches into the lives of all staff and volunteers as well as the young people. Staff and volunteers continually spend long hours at the Lighthouse properties (the village) that benefit the organization, and the individual, manifesting as personal advancement, professionalism, deeper and richer relationships and an enveloping sense of purpose that permeates many, if not all parts of their lives.

12. The results of the program are based on the experience of the journey towards the goal

To reach a destination is only a small part of the process. It is the sort of person you become on the journey to your goal that is celebrated in the program. Major developmental shifts in behaviour, new friends, a deeper understanding of the rhythms of life, a plethora of skills and resiliency structures are the achievements in the process. If a young person does not reach a goal, the journey is re-framed by carers and staff so they can view their advancement in related areas along the way.

13. Guidelines versus rules

The bottom line for the program is that 'we want to keep our kids' attached to their homes. Challenging behaviours are separated from the young person and the staff continue loving and caring for that human being despite those behaviours; negotiation systems are called into action. This educates both resident and staff about the impact of certain behaviours, the role of the unconscious and the varying modalities and channels of communication.

14. The house set-up is that of a home and not an institution

The houses are modeled on a healthy home environment that families share in their daily lives. The environment is always abundant with objects and beauty and does not have a sense of scarcity. Basic life skills are easily developed in these types of environments. The more and beautiful and loving the home is, the more leverage the program has to work with the young people.

15. Program content teaches social entrepreneurship

We encourage and role model to the young people how to be entrepreneurial. We teach young people how to 'fish' and this translates into not relying on anyone source of support to be sustained. Self-funding businesses are targeted because of the passion and initiative that has started and sustained them. The responsibility of the care of young people is community-based and Lighthouses works on the principle of a 'duty of care'. This duty enables the business and the community sector to respond to their needs; to respond to the tribe.

Social Entrepreneurship in Action

As the foundation expands and house numbers increase, villages or clusters of homes will be established. Each cluster will comprise up to 6 homes with a central home/office that houses administration, marketing, care and clinical support and intake processes. Each village/cluster/ tribe will operate as a discrete community.

The community base is a living matrix. It relies on partnerships between individuals, organizations, businesses and families, and through their contributions and collective efforts, the lives of young people and those connected to them are transformed. The sense of belonging that emanates from this social capital structure provides a level of trust that extends beyond the informal relationships in one's life (family, friends etc.) and moves within organizations and groups to create community activities aimed at support, nurturance and meaning.

Role of External Professionals and Paraprofessionals

At all levels of program execution, a myriad of professionals are sought out to assist our young people in their process, and the organisation. These include:

Doctors and psychiatrists
Psychologists
Social workers and youth workers
Psychotherapists and counselors of all types
Creative arts therapists
Artists
Massage therapists
Healers
Dentists
Chiropractors, osteopaths, physiotherapists
Naturopaths and homeopaths
Teachers and trainers
Lawyers and journalists
Members of parliament and public servants
Police and justice personnel
Business people from all walks of life (eg. Food, hospitality, marketing, travel, finance, education etc.)
Drug treatment agencies

Referral Source

Young people are referred to Lighthouse from a diverse source:

Refuges and crisis accommodation
Youth-related organizations
Courts and corrections (juvenile justice)
Police
Schools/related organizations
Drug treatment services
Centrelink/related services
Medical services
Psych/counseling services
Employers
General community services
Department of Human Services
Accommodation services
Churches and related organizations
Family
Word of mouth
Media
Self
Committee, volunteer and patron contacts
Talks and presentation audiences
Conference audiences
Universities and training institutions

Initiation into the Community & Outreach

On average, young people reside at the Lighthouse for a period of 3-4 years or as long it takes for them to be re-integrated into the community. Given the residents are members for life, we assume that young people will always return in some form or another. Usually this is in the form of psychotherapy with the psychologist, family dinners, use the resource centre and attendance at family meetings. Initiation back into the community involves:

Recognition that the next step of development for the young person requires entry in to the larger world and a journey beyond the tribe.
Re-assurance that the organization is always contactable and available to them, especially through the psychologist and select carers.
An exit plan is developed with the primary carer, resident psychologist and young person to ensure their accommodation, work/finances and emotional support mechanisms are in place.
Liaison with relevant people/organizations a few months/weeks before the leaving date.
Support in transfer of belongings and set up of new home.
Follow for up to 6 months by the resident psychologist and relevant staff if the young person is not making contact.
Review and case management meetings with relevant care professionals for those young people with psychiatric and juvenile justice histories.

The Flow-On Effect

The flow on effect for Lighthouse and its philosophy is a community response to homelessness rather than a systematic response. The vision for the future of the Lighthouse Foundation is to give back the care of our young people to the tribe/community where they want to attach and belong. Lighthouse offers unique opportunities for a kaleidoscope of funding and wealth building sources to make a contribution to our young people and be part of the solution to the tragedy of homelessness.