A groundbreaking, innovative, intensive family capacity building program is now offered at Mansfield Autism’s new therapeutic care farm, providing hope for families before they get to crisis point.

The live in experience, over a flexible number of days and nights, is always attached to a skill-building stay for the child and provides circuit breaking training and support for those families grappling with the challenges associated with raising autistic children, who may also have co-occurring conditions, behaviours of concern and screen addictions.

“The stays are short, targeted, immersive, family focused and delivered by experienced staff with the comprehensive services and facilities all on our farm in north east Victoria,” explained Chief Executive Simone Reeves.

Sophie and Dale Vine, a popular couple well known to fans of the reality television show ‘The Block’, recently attended a family stay aligned with their child’s skill building stay.

“Our experience at Mansfield’s family stay has had a transformative effect on our family," said Sophie.

"We gained a deeper understanding of how to best support our child both from participating in the tailored parent information sessions as well as having the opportunity to observe the experienced staff work with our child and then practice the strategies ourselves.

"It was just the hands-on experience we needed to feel confident to successfully transition these skills back into the family home,” she said.

The capacity training focuses on the whole family.

“We explored strategies to better support ourselves both individually and each other as a team; including how we manage stress and prioritise self care.

"There was also a strong focus on siblings, how they can be impacted and how to best support them through their own challenges.”

Consistency is key, explained Sophie.

“Extended family members can also attend parts of the training, to observe the structure we would be implementing to ensure cohesion and predictability across all of our child’s environments for greater success.

“Even staff from our child’s school were able to observe part of our child’s skill building stay - this experience was so powerful that they are now in the process of rolling this program out school wide and have already seen positive outcomes,” she said.

Now firm advocates of this innovative program; Dale and Sophie believe it’s essential that other families have the opportunity to experience this kind of support.

“A gap has finally been filled that actually provides meaningful change.

"We look forward to more stays at Mansfield Autism as our learning on this journey will be lifelong, but for the first time, we don’t feel daunted by this thought, we feel hopeful,” Sophie said.

The intensive family stays were informed by an initial pilot program run at the Mansfield Autism farm.

Parents Rebekah and Vincent who live in Melbourne, experienced the first family stay earlier in the year and their assessment was also glowing.

Vincent explained that finally discovering a structured, early intervention residential option felt like a lifeline.

“At Mansfield Autism, we watched experts calmly model the strategies and we then practiced them ourselves, with immediate feedback.

“This hands-on approach was profoundly more impactful than simply reading about best practices or attending occasional online or office-based sessions."

The family’s experience stands as a case study highlighting not just the efficacy of immersive, specialised care, but the urgent need for these solutions to become more widely accessible.

“Prior to our involvement with Mansfield Autism our son had been a school refuser for over 500 days.

"The intensive family stay was the unblocker and he is now attending mainstream school full time.

“We believe that, with broader recognition and implementation of programs like Mansfield Autism’s ‘Intensive Family Capacity Training’, countless other families could avoid the cycle of crisis and find renewed stability, empowerment, and hope,” said Vincent.

By delivering genuine therapeutic value in a structured, home-like environment, Mansfield Autism is forging an innovative path in autism services; one that Ms Reeves explains addresses the root causes of family breakdown before emergency measures are required.

According to Ms Reeves, the family stay program is uniquely positioned to fill a glaring service gap; it offers a short-term, immersive, family-centred intervention for autistic children with complex behaviours, without demanding a crisis trigger.

“It’s more effective because intensive training and hands-on practice can rapidly build the capacity of the family and support them to implement strategies.

"Hands-on training has been shown to be much more effective than online training, in-person short training sessions or group sessions and can chart a new path for the family.

“Seeing hope replace the etched lines of worry and exhaustion is the best feedback,” she said.

The program costs $3000 per family.

The NDIS provides some funding for building family capacity however not all families have sufficient capacity building funding in their child’s NDIS plan.

Mansfield Autism is actively approaching philanthropic foundations to help raise the funds to offer family capacity building stays for families who do not have access to enough funding.

“We will continue to collect data about the effectiveness of this innovative program to contribute to the collective understanding about the importance of building parent capacity and the associated whole of life social and economic benefits,” said Ms Reeves.

Mansfield Autism Statewide Services has been providing support for autistic people and their families for over 50 years.

The service included skill building stays, respite, family camps, specialist school and in-home autism practitioner support.