Family & Friends Information
If you are thinking about joining the Rendu program you may find it helpful to give your partner, friends and family the following information.
Is someone you care about thinking of joining the Rendu Program?
If you’re reading this, chances are that a family member, partner or friend is thinking about taking part in the program offered by Rendu Youth Service.
You might be feeling many different things about this, relief, concern, and anxiety, hope or confusion. You may also be feeling like you want to do everything you can to assist this person in getting the most they can out of this opportunity. You may however be unsure about how to do this.
When someone you care about is misusing drugs, alcohol or has a gambling problem it can impact on you and other people in many ways. Sometimes this will make it very difficult for you to feel close to the person or even to be able to talk to them about what is going on.
This doesn’t mean you necessarily stop caring it probably just means that you are finding their behavior hard to deal with or approve of.
Rendu will do this by:
- Referring someone to talk to about what the young person is experiencing and the best way you can provide them assistance.
- Refer you to trained counselors for you to discuss your feelings with and identify what supports you need.
- Direct you to printed information and other resources to help you understand what is going on.
- Where appropriate put you in contact with others who are in a similar situation as yourself so that you can gain support from each other.
There are no restrictions on you maintaining contact with your friend or loved one while he is a resident in the Rendu program. You can phone him and visit him at the house whenever you like, with the proviso that you agree to follow the Rendu House Rules while there, these rules include a visitor’s curfew.
Residents can, with prior notice and agreement have overnight stays with you away from the house.
Visitors are not permitted to stay overnight with a resident at the house.
Men participating in the Rendu program have agreed, for the duration of their time with the program, to abstain from drugs alcohol and gambling. This can be a very difficult thing to achieve and can be more difficult if the people around them aren’t sensitive about their own drinking, gambling or drug use when they are together.
This may mean that when you see the person that you make a decision to avoid doing these things for the time that you’re together.
Please contact the staff at Rendu to find out more; especially how you can support the person you care about while they participate in the Rendu program.
