Balanced Choice Through Care
Through-care
The success of the Balanced Choice programs delivered within centres led to requests for the company’s facilitators to deliver personalised, individual through-care services for young people released from detention and re-entering the community. Balanced Choice Change Leaders specialise in building personal connections, both amongst the groups they work with and between themselves and their clients. Connection and trust are the foundation for the self-reflection required to make lasting positive change.
Who’s it for?
The Balanced Choice Individual service provides through-care for young people that struggle to: Create or maintain healthy relationships with themselves and others; experience positive emotions; or engage with school and other beneficial activities. Balanced Choice individual care is for young people who require additional tailored support to make better life choices and become a better version of themselves.
Who does it work?
A Balanced Choice Change Leader works with the young person and their support network to co-design an engagement program suited to their specific needs and interests. Each week, the Balanced Choice leader delivers a session in which the young person is the sole focus of all activities. Over time, the Change Leader assists the young person to identify the values that are most important in their lives and recognise the actions and behaviours that bring them into conflict with those values. Programs are designed to improve young people’s respect for themselves, leading to improved respect for others and development of the emotional and social awareness required to make more positive life choices.
Principles of Co-design & Delivery
While every Individual Care program is tailored to the needs of the young person, they all adhere to the principles of Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism through the framework of PERMA:
Positive Emotion
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Achievement
Balanced Choice facilitators specialise in using culturally and socially safe activities, selected by the young people themselves, to generate positive emotions as tools to initiate moments of self-reflection and self-awareness. Sessions vary depending on the young person’s interests. Engagement and relationship building can often involve different activities including sports, gym, hikes, hobby or craft activities, card or board games, art, etc. The purpose is to engage the young person and build trust and rapport. This connection allows us to form safe and healthy relationships in which we can establish professional boundaries but also use our position and ‘side-by-side’ conversation to develop the target concepts and goals identified by the YP, our staff, and the care team.
Commitment
The foundations of Balanced Choice’s Individual Care program are trust and consistency. In order for the young person to trust their Change Leader, there needs to be a consistency that they will walk beside them every week for a period of time. To this end, Balanced Choice Individual Care requires a commitment from clients and partners of:
A minimum of 2 hours per week
A minimum contract of 12 weeks
The co-design process involves ongoing reflection and adjustment based on the needs of the young person and the important people in their lives.
“I was working with a young man and we were out for a walk. He noticed that all his neighbours' driveways were covered in leaves. He went to collect two brooms and together we began clearing the leaves. Parents and kids came outside and gave him words of thanks and encouragement, some of his friends joined in too. This young man taught me that acts of kindness often lie in plain sight, yet it sometimes takes a perceptive eye and a genuine desire to make a difference.”
Connor Francis - Balanced Choice through-care facilitator
Contact
To find out more about the Balanced Choice Throughcare Program, please contact Jason Macdonald.