How to join the community?
First contact is established by means of telephone or e-mail on the initiative of potential residents or their relatives. First, we exchange basic information and arrange a meeting at the community centre if the interest for the stay is still present. At the meeting we see each other, the therapist collects more information about the potential residents on one hand, and the potential residents get to know the therapist, staying conditions and the surroundings. We exchange all precise information from the run of the daily life in the community to formal procedures that is to be passed, and the financial side of the residence. This way potential residents can easily make their decision whether they will take the step and join the community for a limited number of days, and our therapist will easily advise them about it.
After the decision for the stay has been made, we arrange the date of arrival and the length of the stay.
The stay in the community and the daily activities are based on free will of each resident. They are not forced to stay by any means, so they are free to leave the community any time they decide to do it.
Our Program
People usually function in everyday life in the way they got used to during their youth and then change habits only slowly in their life time. A productive writer is capable of writing a substantial novel in a relatively short time period, because he/she does this every day according to unwritten timetable. People that often drink larger quantities of alcohol did not do it from the beginning of their life, but they slowly raised the quantity. The same is valid for numerous other types of addictions where a certain form of behaviour repeats more and more often to become unsustainable for an individual and his/her social surroundings. There appears a desire in person to change his/her pattern of behaviour, but it cannot be introduced during one night. People should learn a new pattern of behaviour first and then practice it in their ordinary life.
Our therapy bases on the belief that a person should learn a new pattern of behaviour first and then practice it long enough to become a habit, that will be beneficial for his/her common life. It is easy to say, but how to realize it?
The life in our small community is calm; on the other hand, every day is precisely planned from the morning to the evening. The majority of the time is committed to farm work, which is to a wide extend connected with farm animals and pets. There are also various leisure, sport, and educational activities involved into the daily timetable. An average common day starts with breakfast and ends with social time after supper.
We support individual approach, as each of our clients (residents) is a person with wide variety of abilities, who wants to raise the level of some areas of occupational performance during the time spent in the community.
We make an occupational performance test with all long-term residents at least when entering and leaving the Colours of Language Therapeutic Community. Interviews with all about their feelings and assumptions about community life are conducted weekly. We try our best to meet the needs of the residents on a daily basis and always add new activities. We encourage self-initiative and uniqueness, so we do not recognize "normal" persons but persons with individual needs and abilities.