A provider of animal-assisted therapy is asking the community to step-up after the loss of funding has left many unable to afford their service.
Jude Robb owns and operates Fossil Creek Farm – a space that is home to more than 100 animals and provides animal-assisted therapy sessions for both adults and children.
Set on 100 acres of farmland in the Wairoa Valley, Jude has been running the therapy sessions with animals for the past three years.
Four months after starting the sessions she found herself fully-booked and now runs with four social workers fully-booked most weeks.
“The saddest thing for me is how busy we are… it’s hard, some days you wake up and think ‘I know that we’re flat stick and there’s other people waiting’,” she says.
Until recently, Fossil Creek has had access to funding from I AM HOPE, a charity that aims to normalize mental health discussion by funding free counselling sessions for young people.
Jude says because she noticed the growing need of their service, she would often offer four free sessions.
“If we had multiple people apply, we’d put them through I AM HOPE or we’d fund it ourselves – we have a small pool that we’re trying to grow as a trust.”
But a change in the way I AM HOPE funds services has meant that Fossil Creek can no longer access the funding.
I AM HOPE chief executive Troy Elliott says they have noticed an “overwhelming huge increase” in people under the age of 25 needing mental health support.
“We’ve grown in the last two years from spending $78,000 a month on practitioners or counsellors to spending over $500,000 a month - over a 400 per cent increase,” he says. “We are a charity that’s unfunded by central government, so it’s put a massive pressure on our foundation.”
Troy says this meant they had to make some hard decisions to focus more on intervention funding, by prioritizing client-driven funding – the young people who come directly to them.
“We’re there for all children, they’re all our children, but the reality is we need to really focus on that intervention.
We need to get the best return on our donors’ dollars becasue we need to remember: all our money that we spend is donations.”
He says, unfortunately this has meant practitioners who have previously been able to register their own clients to receive funding can no longer do so.
“Trust me, it breaks my heart having to turn down any health practitioner,” Troy says.
But with over 550 counsellors on the platform, he says young people in the region still have a good choice of who they would like to talk with.
“We absolutely believe that therapy anywhere out there is brilliant, we absolutely appreciate all therapists.”
Jude says the changes simply mean that they will need to “step up” to keep helping the community’s young people.
Recently she offered four free sessions and within days had 30 people asking to take up the offer.
“We can’t cover the cost of that many people, so we are asking the community to step up to support their community.”
“They’re our people, they’re going to be our future community leaders and people, we need to support them, so, I’m putting the call out hoping that small and large businesses will see it as a good way to reinvest in the community.”
She says it’s a nerve-wracking thing asking for help via social media and although some people say the one-hour session for $80 is expensive, she believes it is money well spent.
“We can’t run on just the session price - I pay staff, plus there’s a 100-acre farm with animals to feed. Hay for a year for us is $17,000, that’s just hay. There’s hard feed for all the horses and vet care alone we’d be looking at $15,000 a year.”
Go here to support Fossil Creek Farm.
