Our Program
A Recovery Model
Destiny Haven was established to offer a family-oriented environment where women can experience safety, unconditional love and acceptance, encouragement, counselling and the appropriate psycho-and life-skills education to help them on their journey towards recovery and wellness. Destiny Haven chose a focus on women as there are so few places in Australia that support women solely, and we recognise the substantial benefit of single-gender programs in successful recovery.
A Recovery Model provides holistic treatment and care within an active and assertive partnership between the client, carer and the necessary support agencies, delivering goal orientated and assertive care and treatment.
Additionally, we have built our model of care on best practice based on evidence, using the full range of experience and expertise within our own organisation based on research of other organisations in the field across Australia and internationally.
Destiny Haven’s recovery-oriented approach focuses on potential and strengths, not deficits. It is sensitive to the needs of our women, their families and friends, and values independence and self-determination.
Our Program
The Destiny Haven program is between 12 months or longer, recognising that each woman’s journey in recovery is unique. The program is customised to each woman’s needs as they advance through the program at their own pace.
It is fully immersive with one-on-one and group components and teaches how to really understand the core thinking behind the symptoms leading to unwanted behaviours like addiction and mental health illness.
The caring and experienced volunteer staff members live on-site and are available 24/7 to support clients. Our residents must be involved as much as possible in all decisions about their care, including assessment, developing goals for treatment, individual care planning, evaluating outcomes of care, and decisions made about broader life issues such as accommodation.
There are seven key elements to our residential program that fall underneath two broad desired outcomes for our women – emotional and psychological wellness and practical life skills. The interconnection and flow are summarised in the diagram below:
Emotional & Psychological Wellbeing
One-on-one counselling
Counselling is available to all residents and it is carried out by professional counsellors who must have appropriate experience, be a member of an endorsed counselling association, and undergo the required clinical supervision themselves.
Group Therapy
Group therapy sessions are held weekly by highly trained clinical services staff. Topics explored include understanding boundaries, co-dependency, understanding anger, psycho-educational topics, understanding addiction and the addiction cycle, understanding complex trauma and its effects on the adult person and many more.
Individual Learning Modules
Twice a week residents work through modules at their own pace assigned by the Clinical Services Manager, depending on their own unique backgrounds and circumstances. The learning modules are based on a similar approach to the group sessions in that an individual’s underlying issues need to be addressed for long-term recovery to take place.
Art Therapy
Many women who have participated in our program will state that much of their healing was achieved through the weekly creative-art therapy classes. This process is designed to help women heal from many issues in their past that they may initially struggle to articulate in traditional talking therapy. We believe the Art Therapy sessions to be one of the most beneficial components of our program.
Practical Life Skills
Case management
Through assertive and consistent individual case management our residents, staffing team and residents’ support networks can remain focused on the goals of each individual at Destiny Haven. Client-focused goal setting and planning primarily focuses on themes such as legal matters, education, children, education, finances and budgeting and other individualised support needed.
Life Skills
Our women are actively engaged, as members of the Destiny family, in running their ‘home’. This includes participating in the kitchen with cooking and meal preparation, cleaning their rooms and the facility, coordinating the laundry washing and much more. Women are given a ‘buddy’ upon arrival at Destiny Haven; someone who has been in the program for a suitable amount of time, made positive progress and earned responsibility.
Depending on her own needs, residents can also participate in health and fitness activities and are also encouraged spiritually to develop a relationship with God. All this aids in facilitating a smooth transition to independent living when the program is completed.
Work Readiness & Employment
Vital to ensuring that our women are not drawn back into negative cycles is the process of equipping them to return to mainstream society with the confidence, social and employability skills that they need so they are empowered to find work and develop positive social networks. As women progress through the Destiny Haven program, they are encouraged to begin studying or working part-time and are supported in this process.
Our social enterprises provide employability skills training opportunities for our residents. One of the social enterprises, The Diamond Collection, involves the boutique manufacturing of handmade Belgian chocolates, speciality preserves, handmade jewellery and hand-sewn products. The women in the program are given multiple opportunities to be involved in the creation of the products that we sell – including all aspects of creating, packaging and selling the products at special events and markets. The women in the program experience training in hospitality, retail, hostessing and waitressing.
The other social enterprise is a tourism accommodation business, Valley View Luxury Retreat. The women in our program are given the opportunity to be part of the housekeeping team and as they progress through the program, they become leaders of the team. They are provided with a professional reference at the completion of the program for their efforts.
