Off to Portugal

What do vacations and therapy have to do with each other? Quite a lot. Many of our residents have, due to their lifestyle, forgotten how to make good use of their free time. Most of the bad things happened when there was nothing to do. Vacations were often just an excuse to really go off the rails again. Statistics show that most relapses occur during free time. That’s why it’s an important goal to relearn how to spend a vacation in a constructive way, practice self-organization, and take responsibility for others. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. With our shared living communities from Bad Eilsen, Blomberg, Pfungstadt, Helpup, and some friends from the ZESO Life support group for at-risk youth, we traveled 2,500 km with a group of about 70 people to a location near Lisbon (Mafra) to learn how to spend our free time.