Category: Healing

Opinions about the most effective approaches to treating individuals with a serious mental illness are many. At Hopewell, we focus on what is called milieu therapy. This means that the community at Hopewell serves as an important and affirming resource for giving and receiving emotional support. It is the primary healing agent.

In my experience, there are four essential elements that are key to understanding and fostering this healing process. They are:

Safe environment – Having a feeling of safety and security allows individuals to work on their inner self and personal goals. They are able to trust others which then allows for greater learning and growing. Providing a safe, peaceful and therapeutic environment is why Hopewell’s rural location was chosen.

Time to Heal – There are few shortcuts to healing from most serious injuries or illnesses. The same holds true for mental illness. Expecting a miracle technique or magical pills to “cure” a mental illness is not realistic. Hopewell holds that sustained holistic treatment is the most effective means to achieving recovery.

Support System – It is essential that individuals with serious mental illness have active professional, peer and family support in order to achieve optimum results. Support can be rendered in many ways, but most importantly, the recovering individual needs to feel valued, respected and actively engaged in the treatment process.

Knowing the Difference Between Healing and Coping – Both are important and necessary for recovery and wellness. Finding ways to cope helps individuals manage their symptoms and maintains their sense of well being. For some people, however, coping may only serve as temporary solution to a more complex condition.

At Hopewell we offer the opportunity for these individuals to truly “heal” through the integration of a holistic mind, body, spirit approach. Our goal is to help residents have the time to achieve and realize a more sustained recovery and to experience more of their unique potential and sense of personal fulfillment.

Thanks to the active support of our Board, staff, volunteers and friends, Hopewell has been able to develop the resources and expertise to help make a positive difference in the lives of the individuals we serve.

The primary goal of a therapeutic community is to foster individual change and to eventually help people return to society and live a productive life. This is accomplished through a community of people (at Hopewell – staff and residents) working together to help themselves and each other. Residents learn from one another and learn to rely on each other – a skill that their illness has most likely prevented them from developing.

The usual chain of command with staff at the top making the decisions is not characteristic of Hopewell, or similar programs. There is frequent discussion with residents (including a Resident Council) where decisions are made regarding their individual paths to recovery, off campus trip locations and social activities.

Treatment at Hopewell comes in the form of a structured day filled with meaningful work and creative, social and educational groups. Programming changes with the residents’ needs and seasons, but typically includes mood management, dialectical behavior therapy, medication management, equine-assisted learning, meditation and spirituality, independent living skills and creative expression.

Hopewell’s holistic, therapeutic farm community model of care creates lasting results and positive lifestyle changes. We see this progress every day at the farm through the residents’ decreased psychiatric symptoms, improved social skills and self-confidence.

Hopewell is one of 5 therapeutic farm communities in the country, and the only one of its kind in Ohio. We believe in the healing and recovery that takes place here, and that everyone can experience success, find a life of purpose and feel hope.

The wind rustling in the trees. A lake sparkling in the sun. Birds calling through the forest. If these words conjure images that relax you, you’re not alone. Experience in nature has long been recognized as healing. For individuals struggling with mental illness, nature can serve to reduce symptoms and improve health.

With this in mind and with the generous support of the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation, Hopewell has created a nature-based therapy program. Although Hopewell’s existing programming includes elements of growing food, caring for farm animals and generally enjoying our natural environment, we believe that creating specific experiences and challenges based in nature will help residents heal.

Over the last several months, some of the weekly activities residents have participated in include:

• Hiking and camping
• Nature arts projects
• Wilderness skills training
• Bird watching and plant identification

Future plans will bring the garden inside for an indoor plant care project, create a Hopewell nature calendar and make sensory trail improvements along the Clara Rankin Trail. On bad weather days, residents learn about local plants and animals, write about nature for the Hopewell resident newsletter and build a Hopewell species database. Daniel Horne, Clinical Manager, says, “Nature is already a significant component of our community. Our hope is that by actively introducing our residents to their natural surroundings and engaging them in explorations of their individual issues within the context of nature, we will have significant and lasting positive impacts on the quality of their lives.”