I would like to start by introducing you to an author I found most interesting in my recovery journey. His words resonated within me and challenged me to find my answers through thinking outside of my usual patterns of thinking. He wrote:

 

‘The greatest danger (facing us today) is perhaps not the arrogance with which we defend our existing thinking system but the complacency with which we hold on to it – because we cannot conceive of anything else’.

Edward de Bono

I Am Right You Are Wrong

 

And so my journey began.........

 

From where I stand today I can reflect back and identify the challenges and barriers we face in being able to forge healthy, supportive, rock solid relationships with our loved ones. They include:

 

·         The challenge of adjusting to a new reality – one that we may not have conceived as ever being a part of our lives.

 

·         The second challenge is developing the skills and strategies to cope with this new reality and adjusting our perception of our caring role to be more focused on the needs of the person in our care, rather than what we believe to be right for them.

 

·         The barriers that impede this transition are indeed very complex and requires us to look more closely at our patterns of thinking and behaving – yet when fully understood are amazingly simple.

 

·         When these skills are mastered miracles can happen especially when family bonds and relationships heal, for it is then we discover a new way to live our relationships in partnership towards wellness.

Introduction

Today there are thousands of adolescents and young adults across Australia who by their reactive actions, have earned tickets of admission to hospital emergency rooms, homeless shelters, substance abuse treatment programs, psychiatric hospitals, and jails.

Many go back and forth in a confusing zigzag, never staying very long in any one place and despite the best efforts of each agency, not one of them, working alone, can meet the complex needs of these young people.

They live with a mixture of mental health problems, alcohol and drug abuse problems, health problems, immaturities, broken relationships with families, disrupted schooling, and behaviour that disturbs the community and is often technically criminal.

With limited access to information and support their families attempts to control the situation by either wrapping them in cotton wool and doing everything for them, or using power over tactics in an attempt to force conformity to their beliefs about how their family members should or ought to behave. Many hold the belief that once this is achieved then family life can return to normal.   

Sadly, many families do not realise that what they are attempting to control are health conditions, and their efforts to force behavioural change in this way can lead to further complications such as hostile dependency, oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) co-dependency, depression, or the breakdown of the family unit resulting in homelessness.

I was stuck in this pattern of behaviour until my sons’ crisis and believed what I was doing was ‘the right thing’.

Empowering Families to break down the barriers presents a new way to understand and live our most crucial relationships: with parents and children, with friends and most importantly, to reconnect with our deepest sense of self. 

Why focus on families?

Families represent one of Australia’s most under-recognized sources of power that can transform our mental health care

Families are often the strongest advocates for their youth and their staunchest supporters

Families understand that each child possesses unique strengths and abilities and

It is these traits that can be the foundation of incredible personal growth and development for the whole family

Background Information

 

For many families, learning to cope with the challenging behaviours and complex needs of a loved one with a substance abuse or mental health condition can be daunting as their lives are often characterized by recurrent, significant crises. Life and the relationships we hold dear can become strained and at times – overwhelming for all family members.

 

My son was extremely blessed to find the support he so desperately needed and I was so relieved and grateful to the services and fabulous workers who took him in and worked their magic with him.

 

However in my head and in every minute area of my body a voice screamed ‘What about me!’ Where is my help? I searched hi and low, day after day after day – to no avail. I did my best, but I knew that my best was not going to be good enough to support him towards recovery. I had already given my best – for many years - and it hadn’t work. What it did do was leave me with the feeling that I needed to know more – more about his condition, more about his medication, and more importantly more about reconnecting from my heart to his so that the thoughts of leaving this precious life on earth would be banished from his thinking forever.

It was at this time that I made myself a promise that no-one, no family, carer nor significant other, should have to go through this alone and I made a commitment to my son, myself and to the thousands of families experiencing these same or similar situations – that I would find a way to educate and support them to reconnect with their loved ones. I passionately believed that they held the key to long lasting recovery and still do today.

It took seven years of consulting and working with families, exploring and researching therapies and philosophies and reading lots of self help books to develop a program that we could all relate to, one that also addressed our needs, and brought sanity back into our lives.

For the past thirteen years I have been facilitating this educational support program to family and carer groups with outstanding results.