Listen as Steve Killelea, The Manor of Hope’s founder explains how they treat their residents with respect. It is setup as a family environment.
From the video:
“The program is working and we’re having some really good results,” says Steve Killelea, Manor of Hope’s founder.
“The mind, body, spirit is everything and we treat these guys like family. We call it “la familia” – they’re like my kids and I don’t treat them any differently. We love them and we eat every meal together at a big family table and we do stuff together” Killelea says. “It’s not like they say – – “nah… I don’t feel like doing that” – – no… get in the car, were going!”
We treat these guys like family
“And the guys all have fun when they push themselves and they go and they do things.”
“We treat them with respect. It’s very different because it’s not a facility. You go around the country and you see a lot of places that are like semi-hospitals and their residents are just a number. We are small and the most guys that I’d want to take is 14 at one particular time. We have ten that are in the program right now and two that are getting ready to leave at the end of January. But we don’t want to be big because we really want to help people and I think that if you get too big, you really can’t keep the quality and excellence that we want to provide as a service.”
“When the guys come to us, their self-esteem is terrible, I mean no matter what they say, they feel horrible about themselves, they feel horrible about the things they’ve done and they just can’t help it. Their brain is not functioning properly and they just can’t help themselves. And that’s one of the cool things that you see – guys come to us and these guys are really broken. They are hard core people and a lot of people have given up on them. We don’t give up on them though'” says Killelea. “It’s funny, at the six month mark or so you really start to see the fog lift. And you’re like, wow, this is an amazing person here! Nobody took the time and effort to be there to support that person and help them and because we are there it is amazing to see the things they are accomplishing.”
