Daily tasks of feeding and caring for animals, planting seeds and harvesting vegetables, building barns and constructing furniture, or tapping trees and splitting firewood all provide structure and routine through meaningful work. Participation in the Work Program also allows residents to build and foster confidence and self-efficacy by seeing projects through from start to finish while having therapeutic conversations with staff and other residents during the entire process.
For nearly a century, work therapy has been at the center of our residential treatment program.
While we strongly believe in the power of healing through work, we recognize that our residents do need robust clinical support in order to process and progress through the complex struggles that accompany mental health and substance abuse. Each resident receives wrap-around support through individual therapy, group therapy, psychiatry, medication management, case-management, and substance-abuse programming, as well as mentorship from non-clinical staff as part of our team model.
Beyond the therapeutic value that a resident experiences through work and clinical programming, simple involvement in community here at Spring Lake Ranch provides its own form of healing.
Residents learn to care for a cause greater than themselves and in doing so learn to care for their own well-being. Our residents, often for the first time, find themselves establishing real connections to those around them and form skills to develop community in their lives beyond the Ranch. In sharing life together, staff and residents alike open themselves to relationships that are reciprocal, rather than unilateral. Residents have a chance to gain greater responsibility and accountability in an environment where risks can be managed appropriately, and they become active participants in their own recovery.
