Hand In Hand Farm

Family farm sessions: Offered 135 days, 7 hours per day. Dedicated local families support the operation when camps are not inb session. Parents and children learn to model behavior that exemplifies healthy functioning to visiting families during camps. The children train for certifications, called apprentice levels, in Horseman, Teamster, and Ranch Hand area. They also receive a lot of personalized, intensive family skills training because there are only 10 participants per session. Family farm sessions are offered at no cost to participants. About 10 families per year attend family farm sessions each year as well as many visitors that just come a few times. All of the regularly attending families report and exemplify deep positive changes, such as teens coming out of depression and ceasing to have suicidal thoughts, or preschool children becoming potty-trained. parents discipline without anger or violence while at the same time keeping control of their household.

Vocational Training: Offered 150 days, 7 hours per day, average of 2 trainees at a time. These trainees help volunteers conduct the family camp days and family farm sessions, as well as doing tasks on other days that help support the mission, like maintaining the buildings and the grounds. All of the trainees this past year were disabled or had major mental health issues such as depression. All of the trainees that completed training were able to become employed in full-time stable jobs with a stable housing situation.

Two online parenting classes taught by volunteers, 90 minutes each per week, about 50 weeks per year to about 40 participants between the two classes. Parents learn a system of planning and discipline for their families that really work. The main function of these classes is to maintain and build on the hand-on in-person education that families were introduced to in the in-person programs of family camps, family farm sessions, and vocational training.