Run by Mission Australia, the eight-bed mixed-gender facility in Dubbo is for young people between 13 and 18-years-old.

The majority of clients are referred from Juvenile Justice – Mission Australia’s partners in the governance and service delivery of the facility. They stay for at the Mac River Centre for three months and then get another three months of outside support.

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Mission Australia area manager Luke Butcher said the program had a high success rate of young people completing the 12 week rehabilitation program, but they did often return.

“Contemporary thinking is it takes a few goes through any kind of behaviour change, like with people giving up sugar or giving up smoking, it's the same kind of process,” Mr Butcher said.

“We do have a lot of young people who do represent, which is positive because it shows that young people see the service as a safe place to be, it shows young people get benefits from the service as well.”

The Mac River Centre is holistic. As well as getting an school education, the young people also learn about how to deal with their mental and physical health, family connections and risk factors to offending. Mr Butcher said he hoped each time a young person went through the program they left with extra life skills under their belt.

“I use the analogy that it's like digging for gold in a gold mine. Every time young people come into the service we're putting some supports in the mine so the mine shaft doesn't collapse,” he said.

One of those skills is teaching the young people how to express their emotions.

“How to seek help and how to ask for help can be pretty challenging for young people too. If they're feeling anxious or frustrated or frightened, often that can come out looking like anger but it's not anger per say, it's some of these other things causing them distress in the background,” Mr Butcher said.

In a typical day, the young people wake up at 7am. The morning starts with an exercise routine for about an hour with an on-site gym.

Then they have breakfast, which can either be a hot meal or cereal, followed by chores such as vacuuming or mopping.

From 9am school starts. As well as normal school activities there’s also a social worker who will do some individual counselling, a case worker and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander liaison officer who runs drug and alcohol programs.

The Mac River Centre is on 50 acres so when school finishes more chores are undertaken, such as tending to the vegetable patch or the chickens.

Before cooking dinner, the young people go to a Dubbo gym for another round of exercise.

“We know substance use has some physical health affects as well so one of the big motivating factors for young people is about getting physical health back, gaining cardiovascular health and muscle tone,” Mr Butcher said.

After eating it’s another lot of cleaning up and chores, phone calls to family and then to bed at 9.30pm.

On weekends, family contact is encouraged as much as possible, including visits. For families with Skype, the centre has a video conferencing system to contact loved ones while they’re in residence.

The Mac River Centre is a state-wide service, but Mr Butcher said the majority of people who stayed came from the western region.

“We know that young people in regional, rural and remote areas are disproportionately affected by substance use, alcohol and drugs. Mac River has allowed us to provide support for young people closer to home in a safe, supported environment where we can start to work through some of those issues that might lead young people down the path of substance abuse,” he said.

Mr Butcher said he attributed the Mac River Centre’s high rate of success to it’s strong partnerships with Juvenile Justice – which he said had been involved since the beginning – and the Department of Education.

Earlier in the month the Mac River Centre won silver at the Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards.