Mutual Support is dedicated to providing a safe and caring environment for children. All the children who are a part of Mutual Support are treated with respect and love.

We believe that children are a sacred trust and deserve to be a welcome part of a functioning family unit. If, for whatever reason, the children’s own natural family is unable to provide a safe and nurturing environment it is our desire to provide parenting, without attempting to replace or discourage the children’s relationship with their family of origin.

Although the children may exhibit some difficult and socially unacceptable behaviours, we firmly believe that there are no ‘bad kids’. Undesirable behaviour is an outer sign of inner pain. We do not condone unacceptable behaviour but we strive to look beyond the behaviour to the children’s inner pain and need for healing. We recognize that many behaviours are learned as defence mechanisms that have enabled children to survive certain situations. By providing a structured, stable, predictable environment we work to make those defence mechanisms unnecessary for the children’s survival and help the children learn new, healthier ways of being in the world and in society.

It is our desire that children be given every opportunity to realise their individual potential. We strive to do that by providing children with opportunities to discover their inner strengths and gifts, while remapping some of their more traumatic life experiences.

We believe that children must be given the opportunity to find their place as part of a family, understand their part in personal relationships, recognize themselves as part of society, and to be responsible for their own decisions and actions. We endeavour to teach them to understand that they are physical, emotional and spiritual beings and to be healthy functioning members of society they need to be able to honour and care for themselves.

We believe that as adults, it is our responsibility to provide the environment that will foster the best possible outcome for the children in our care. As members of a team we recognize that we all play only a small part of the whole picture. Working together we make our dreams and desires a reality for children. Every team member is respected and acknowledged for the part they play and it is expected that the same level of commitment is shown by each person at Mutual Support for every other team member.

We have a strong Christian component to our program. This gives us a common bond and level of understanding that is a valuable part of the strength of Mutual Support. While this level of spiritual awareness may be shared with the children, we undertake to respect the children’s right to make decisions for themselves. While we share our spiritual life with the children it is done in a caring and loving way. We are not dogmatic, we do not demand that children participate in any spiritual discussion or activity if they are not comfortable or not willing. It is expected, however, that children will show equal respect for the rights of others.