Financial Functioning

Main principle : lack of payment is not a sufficient reason for denying help to those in need, especially to emotionally troubled children.

How much can you charge a client when ces life is at stake with you ?

(children anyway have no money).

"Having a real friend means being involved with someone who chooses to spend time with you just because they want to and not because they are paid to do so. Real friends are hard to find" (Minnesota Governor's Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities).

Low cost : costs of functioning are designed to be low, there must be no rent nor installments to pay so that lack of payment should not be a deterrent to admit a child if nobody is able or willing to pay a rate. Considering that human life can not be traded for money and that the household can live on independent incomes, a child can be admitted for free (the founder lives on retirement income).

The modest way of life in the countryside is designed to save money (some food being homegrown and winter heat can be free by taking firewood from the property) and to keep the cost of functioning low because this program is

1- designed for a few children

2- designed to serve children even from the poorest families

therefore the economic level of life in the project will remain low, not allowing to provide salaries to the team.

Assistants receive a monthly allowance depending on what money is left to share after basic expenses are paid : power, telephone, internet access, car gas and insurance, food...

Rate paid by parents or placing agencies : parents or placing agencies pay the rate they feel is right and according to what they can afford, there is no rate requested in advance of them. In other words, the parents or agencies pay what they want or what they can. Thus their payments may vary from one month to an other according to the satisfaction they find about the way their child is being treated by us, or according to the changes in their financial situation.

Should some parents be unable to pay the slightest amount, this should not be a deterrent for considering accepting their child or continuing treatment. If feasible, parents might then support the home by providing help or goods instead of money.

Should we seriously run short of money, parents and placing agencies would be informed about the situation and asked if they can remedy.

No fund raising is to be done for this project, but donations are welcome : fund raising is time consuming and is not much of an activity in which children can participate, we then prefer put our efforts in other fields.

Non-profit functioning : considering that money is not what matters most in the richest relationships like love, friendship, and parental relationships (where nobody pays, nobody is paid), the idea is to create a money-free personalized interacting. As successful relationships lead to happiness, they are an end in themselves and there is no need for a money reward in addition. Therefore the project should keep to a non-profit status.

Additional incomes : an option could be to create at the location some cottage industries, like handwoven rope hammocks, wooden construction games for children, books telling the story and progress of the project, and any other production that would fit in.

Assistants can also have some paid jobs outside of the project and would not have to share such incomes.

Rewards for the tasks : like any other children, children suffering from severe emotional disturbances don't have the money to pay for the services we strive to provide them with, so making money cannot be the main incentive for this activity. Our best reward is happiness felt by the children who are in the process of recovering and happiness also felt by us when we see that we are helpful to the children, plus the satisfaction of living in a natural environment that allows space and flexibility.

Equal monthly allowance : to meet the children's inborn sense of justice and the non-ageist trend of the place, each person of the household receives the same amount for monthly allowance in proportion of the time spent in the home, whatever ces age, functions and seniority are, i. e. children and adults receive the same proportional amount. The same goes for a new assistant and for the founder.

Hopefully, the children will be willing to spare some of their allowance so to make up a fund for their future.

If some assistants would prefer to be part-time on the site, their allowance would be then reduced in proportion.

No definite amount can be quoted for the monthly allowance because it depends on what is left after all the common expenses are paid.

The account book of the project is accessible to anybody at any time to evidence the low cost of functioning.

Advocacy for this model : the low cost operation is also designed to encourage anybody with good will to create similar endeavors without being deterred by the need of a heavy budget.

The positions of assistants are more for a therapeutic way of life than for regular jobs.

rev. 2016