An initiative of Queensland charity Kanyini Connections Ltd
THE SANCTUARY IS AT RISK OF FORCED CLOSURE
After five years of providing free, and incredibly effective, mental health services to women and girls who fall through gaps in our mental health system, Sunshine Coast Council, the managing body with responsibility over the 8-acre site from which we operate in Fellowship Drive, Doonan, has decided that the site would better serve the community if it were given to a local pony club that already has over 30 acres next door to us.
We have been told to vacate the property by February 28th 2025. Council will change the locks on that date.
We are at a total loss to understand this unfathomable decision and have been desperately trying to have it overturned at every level within Council for over 12 months – to no avail.
If our vital mental health charity is to survive, we need to raise $3 million to purchase a property of our own. A forever home for the Sanctuary so that we can’t ever be put in this position again and so that the women and girls of the Sunshine Coast will forever have access to life-saving mental health support.
We need your help to keep the Sanctuary operating.
Every donation, large or small, will help us reach that target. Please help us to share this campaign as far and as wide as you can.
You can donate online below, or by direct bank deposit to Kanyini Connections Ltd, BSB 633000, Account #140908930. All donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.
For more information regarding this issue, or to offer additional support, please email ceo@hoofbeats.org.au.
Our Impact is “Exceptionally Significant”
We’ve just had our amazing results confirmed through an Independent Service Evaluation conducted by Dr Anita Hamilton, Dr Suzi Jordan and Dr Prue Millear from the University of the Sunshine Coast.
The evaluation conducted both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the effectiveness of our equine therapy programs on 47 clients. The full report is available for download here. Here’s a snapshot of the findings with quotes from the report.
The quantitative analysis of data found “a substantial improvement in the participants’ wellbeing post intervention, with a magnitude of difference that is exceptionally significant.”
Twenty-two aspects of mental health were measured. Cohen’s d measures the magnitude of the changes. If the change is small, d = .20, if it’s moderate [clinically significant], d = .50 and if the change is large, d = .80. For the 22 aspects analysed, the smallest d measure in our evaluation was 1.14 with the highest being 2.16
These results are truly extraordinary.
For comparison, in a UNSW service evaluation of headspace programs, the Cohen’s d ranged from 0.11 to 0.37.
The qualitative analysis provided further evidence of the benefits for clients – “reduced thoughts of suicide, increased emotional resilience, improved self-regulation, greater confidence, enhanced coping skills, and better interpersonal relationships.”
The Sanctuary has played a vital role in enhancing the mental health of the 47 women and girls included in this evaluation. This service review has found the equine-assisted programs delivered by the Sanctuary are providing highly impactful and enduring outcomes for participants.
Why Does the Sanctuary Need to Continue?
- Mental illness is the most common chronic health condition in Australia.
- Rates are rising rapidly, particularly among young women, with 45.5% of females aged 16-24 reporting mental health disorders in the past year.
- Queensland faces significantly higher rates of mental illness compared to the national average.
- The Sunshine Coast and Noosa areas experience rates even higher than the QLD average.
- The mental health system is overstretched, struggling to meet demand.
- Research shows that individuals with complex trauma may not respond well to traditional mental health treatments and that equine-assisted interventions can deliver significant benefits in shorter time-frames compared to standard approaches.
We are the only organisation in Australia that provides free ongoing equine therapy services – there is nowhere else that financially disadvantaged clients can go to to access the services that we provide.
What happens if the Sanctuary is forced to close?
So many lives will be negatively impacted. It’s hard to estimate the full level of devastation that will result. We’re a pretty special organisation; a community-based, peer-led mental health charity with a wholly lived-experience workforce and mostly lived-experience volunteer team. Our program facilitators and counsellors each have lived-experience. We have almost 50 volunteers and only 3 full-time equivalent employees.
Without a home:
- We will be unable to continue to provide vital, life-saving mental health services
- Our 9 part-time employees will lose their jobs during a cost-of-living crisis
- Our volunteers, many of whom are ex-clients, will lose their roles – roles that provide a pivotal source of social connection in their lives
- We sincerely believe that the closure of the Sanctuary will cost lives.
Council’s Response
In October 2024, in a televised interview, Mayor Rosanna Natoli stated that the measure of a community was evidenced by how it treats its most vulnerable. We have contacted Mayor Natoli regarding this critical issue, which impacts some of the most vulnerable members of our community, on four separate occasions since August. We are yet to receive a reply.
To avoid being held accountable for the potential closure of a mental health service, Council has offered that we can relocate to another council site. The site that they are offering is a significantly smaller, flood-prone site in Yandina – a site that currently has no infrastructure, no water supply and no power. Council initially committed to providing the necessary site improvements so that we would have the same improvements that we currently have at Doonan. They have since reneged on that offer and now advise that they will only provide some of those improvements. The exact wording, below, is not comforting at all.
Council will endeavour to provide as much as possible within budget to ensure Hoofbeat’s operations may continue in a similar manner.
The budget that is referred to is less than 1/3 of the costed amount required. At the time of writing this post, no work had commenced.
As stated earlier, we sincerely believe that the closure of the Sanctuary will cost lives.
This position is informed by the results of our service evaluation as well as the regular feedback we receive from clients who tell us that being able to access a program at the Sanctuary saved their life. When advised of our position by our CEO, Barb Blashki, Division 10 Councillor David Law, said that position “reflected poorly” on Barb. How he came to his position when he has never visited the Sanctuary or spoken with any of our clients – despite being invited to do so – remains unclear.