Caring Community
Betel offers a caring community environment where the residents learn to care for and support one another. Residents engage in meaningful relationships, in an atmosphere of acceptance and love, creating hope and rebuilding their self-esteem. Betel of America is a peer driven program. Those who have been in the program longer learn to care for and encourage the newer residents.

All residents enter and exit the program voluntarily, but we recommend that residents stay for 12-18 months in our communities to fully benefit and experience long-term change in their lives. Betel is not a sophisticated multi-step program, but is rather about a personal individual commitment to making correct choices daily. Over the course of their stay in Betel and as their attitudes change and improve, residents are gradually given more responsibility. Responsibilities may include household duties and daily monitoring work activities within the program. Their example provides positive encouragement for less experienced residents giving a sense of peer motivation. Staff members live on site and the majority of the staff members are rehabilitated addicts themselves. Their direct knowledge and ability to relate to the resident’s daily challenges and struggles gives the community its peer driven qualities.

Community Service
Engaging in Meaningful Work
As Betel is funded principally through its charitable businesses, the residents contribute to funding their own recovery through the work they carry out on a daily basis. This helps restore a sense of dignity and purpose in the lives of the residents, while reducing the financial burden on both their families and the government. The aim is that when the resident leaves Betel, he will be able to contribute positively to family life and to society.

Each of the residents is required to participate in the daily household responsibilities which include community meal preparation, dishwashing, doing laundry, and general household duties. We find that many of the residents have never learned the discipline of carrying out basic household chores. Learning these essential life skills becomes an important part of their rehabilitation process.

We have found that meaningful work in the Betel charitable businesses is essential to the resident’s long term recovery. It enables residents under the supervision of the staff to become orientated with the realities of the working world–learning to work in teams, following orders, maintaining schedules, principles of accountability, participation in goal setting and project completion. This helps build the residents job skills, and provides them with diligence, punctuality, dependability, self-esteem and respect for others.

Our principal businesses are Nook n’ Crannie furniture stores and Barden’s Gardens. We contract jobs through a variety of sources including other businesses, non-profits, governmental agencies and the general public. Residents are acclimated to the reality of today’s working world through the Betel businesses which include, but are not limited to:

• Furniture repair
• Restoration
• House clearances and moving jobs
• Gardening and Landscaping
• Furniture Purchase and Retail Resale
• Painting and Decorating
• Vehicle Repair & Maintenance

Long- Term Change
As members of an extended family that work and worship together, residents focus on achieving and sustaining change in three main areas of life:

Physically: by maintaining abstinence from harmful, addictive substances (illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco) and recovering the good health habits of a proper diet and exercise.

Emotionally: by practicing self-control and co-operation, gradually recovering a healthy self-image as a positive contributor to work teams, group recreation, and a caring household.

Morally: by acquiring a system of values which helps to sustain the cumulative benefits of the change individuals achieve, successfully avoiding relapse over the long run.