This is the single most important sentence in the entire staffing model. Everything below follows from it.
The centre is designed around a simple idea: that recovery happens through the body, through rhythm, through the ordinary acts of living alongside other people. The farm, the food, the light, the seasons — these are not background. They are the intervention. The people who deliver that intervention are not just the therapists. They are the chef, the homestead keeper, the support workers, the Tús workers, and — in time — the participants themselves.
If those people are exhausted, resentful, unheard, or afraid to raise problems, the whole thing collapses. A beautiful model on paper becomes another place where vulnerable people are let down by a system that looks after itself first.
So we are building this differently.
Seven people around a table. The chef has made something with the goat that was slaughtered last week. One of the Tús workers is showing someone how to render fat properly. The therapist is eating with them. She is not working. She is just there. This is the thing that cannot be replicated in outpatient care — the ordinary evening, the unremarkable shared meal. For many participants, this is the first safe evening they can remember.
Each participant receives one individual therapy session per week and attends one to two facilitated group sessions. That is the formal clinical contact. Everything else is integrated.
The farm work is therapeutic. The food is therapeutic. The rhythm of early light and seasonal living is therapeutic. The conversations at dinner, the quiet presence of a support worker in the evening, the dog sitting next to someone who cannot tolerate eye contact — all of it is doing the work.
This means the therapists carry a caseload of 4–5 individual clients each at 8–10 participants. That is roughly 6–8 clinical hours per week per therapist — sessions, groups, and notes. The remaining time is supervision, programme design, being present in the shared life of the place, and having the space to think clearly about the people in their care.
High-contact clinical models burn therapists out within two years. This one is designed to last.
The therapist at the heart of this needs to be as comfortable in the garden as in the therapy room. Someone who understands the addiction and trauma intersection not as two separate presentations but as one. Who can hold a formal session in the afternoon and sit at dinner that evening and know the difference between working and simply being present.
During working hours, the centre is staffed by the core team. These are the relational anchors — the faces participants see every day, the people who know them. The 24-hour shift worker is also present during the day, but the core team carries the daytime structure.
These seven roles form the organisational backbone. During working hours, the core team is present alongside the 24-hour shift worker, meaning participants are surrounded by familiar, reliable people. The shift worker is not a separate “night person” — they are part of the day, too.
Every day, a residential support worker arrives in time for breakfast and sits down with the group. The outgoing worker is still there. The handover happens naturally after the meal, and then the new worker stays for a full 24 hours — alongside the core team during the day, holding the place through the evening, and sleeping on-site overnight. This is not a night shift. It is a full cycle of presence.
The standard approach is salaried staff on fixed shift patterns — mornings, evenings, overnights. That tends to create dedicated night workers who burn out and a rigid structure that does not tolerate illness or life. There is something appealing about live-in staff, and it is not off the table long-term, but the infrastructure is not there yet. The shift pool model gives us the coverage and the flexibility to start.
Instead: a pool of 4–5 residential support workers, each employed on PAYE, each doing a maximum of two 24-hour shifts per week. They choose their shifts. They go home between them.
| Time | Activity | Nature |
|---|---|---|
| ~8:00 am | Arrive for breakfast. Sit down with the group. Outgoing worker still present. | Active |
| 8:30 – 9:00 am | Informal handover with outgoing worker after breakfast. Outgoing worker goes home. | Active |
| 9:00 am – 12:00 pm | Present alongside core team. Farm work, general presence, helping where needed. | Active (supporting) |
| 12:00 – 2:00 pm | Lunch. Downtime. Available but not leading. | Light |
| 2:00 – 5:00 pm | Afternoon activities, outdoor work, being around. | Active (supporting) |
| 5:00 – 7:00 pm | Evening farm close and meal. | Active |
| 7:00 – 9:30 pm | Evening routine. Optional peer support. Screen-free wind-down. | Active |
| 9:30 – 10:30 pm | Settling in. Last check. Lock up. | Active |
| 10:30 pm – 7:00 am | Asleep on-site. On-call for emergencies. Not waking. | Sleepover |
| 7:00 – 8:00 am | Morning routine. Animals, kettle on. | Active |
| ~8:00 am | Breakfast with the group. Incoming worker arrives and joins the table. | Active |
| 8:30 – 9:00 am | Informal handover. Then go home. | — |
That is roughly 15–16 active hours plus a sleepover. Paid at €280 per shift (active hours plus sleepover allowance). The breakfast overlap means both workers are present at the same time for half an hour, which makes handover feel like a shared meal rather than a shift change.
Two shifts per week maximum. The rest of the time is theirs. They have a life outside the centre. This is the single biggest protection against the emotional weight of the work.
The population is voluntary, mobile adults choosing to be here. A waking night shift is disproportionate and unsustainable. On-call with a proper room to sleep in is enough.
Two shifts per week suits students, parents, and people with other part-time work. It genuinely accommodates life outside the centre.
With 4–5 people in the pool and only 7 shifts per week to fill, illness or a missed shift does not create a crisis. Someone else picks it up. No single person is indispensable on any given night.
With only 4–5 people rotating, participants know everyone within a week. The worker has spent the full day with them, not just arrived in the evening. The relational anchors remain the daytime team — the people they see every single day. The support workers provide safe, familiar presence throughout the 24-hour cycle.
365 shifts per year × €280/shift = €102,200 per year. This is less than two salaried support workers and covers every single day and night with built-in redundancy.
Sundays are deliberately free from formal therapy, groups, and structured work. The day is reserved for reflection, quiet, rest, and optional church attendance. The shift worker provides presence and basic support, but the day is not programmed. Participants choose how to spend it.
Five workers (A–E), seven shifts per week. Each worker does a maximum of two shifts. One spare shift slot provides float for illness, swaps, or rest.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On shift | A | B | C | D | E | A | B |
| Shifts this week | A: 1 of 2 | B: 1 of 2 | C: 1 of 1 | D: 1 of 1 | E: 1 of 1 | A: 2 of 2 | B: 2 of 2 |
| ~8:00 am at breakfast |
Sun worker → A arrives | A → B arrives | B → C arrives | C → D arrives | D → E arrives | E → A arrives | A → B arrives |
| 9 am – 5 pm | Shift worker present alongside full daytime team (clinical lead, somatic therapist, chef, homestead keeper, admin, CEO). Tús workers on-site. | ||||||
| 5 pm – 10:30 pm | Core team goes home. Shift worker holds the evening: farm close, meal, wind-down, settling in, lock up. | ||||||
| 10:30 pm – 7 am | Sleepover. On-call, not waking. Proper room to sleep in. | ||||||
| 7 am – 9 am | Morning routine. Incoming worker arrives for breakfast ~8:00 am. Handover after the meal. | ||||||
In this example, workers C, D, and E each do one shift that week. Workers A and B each do two. The following week the pattern rotates so the load is shared evenly. If any worker calls in sick, the remaining four can absorb the shift without anyone exceeding two per week.
Every morning, the incoming shift worker arrives for breakfast at around 8:00 am and sits down with the group. The outgoing worker is still there. After the meal, the two hand over with a written log: what happened, how participants are, anything to watch. The daytime team arrives around the same time. There is no gap in coverage and no moment where the house is unstaffed.
One pool member is designated on-call each night (not on-shift). They are reachable within 20–30 minutes for emergencies. Paid approximately €40 per night. This provides an additional safety net beyond the shift worker already on-site and sleeping.
The per-shift pool model was not the first idea. It was the last one standing after we worked through the alternatives. This section documents the thinking so the reasoning is transparent.
A residential recovery centre needs round-the-clock presence. The question was never whether to have dedicated residential support, but how to structure it so the people doing it can sustain it. Cuan Mhuire is an example of what happens when oversight is inadequate: safeguarding collapses, people get hurt, and the organisation loses credibility. The staffing model has to prevent that from the outset.
Four full-time salaried staff covering shifts between them. Standard in most residential settings.
The question was not cost. It was the rigidity. Salaried staff need fixed rotas. Fixed rotas create permanent night workers. Permanent night workers burn out. The model also lacks flexibility: it is not family-friendly for staff who are parents, carers, or people with lives outside work. Three consecutive days and nights living at the centre is a significant commitment that most people cannot sustain long-term.
Two residential support workers living on-site for three consecutive days, then off for four. A third person covers gaps and provides relief.
Three days living at work is a long time in a setting where participants are in early recovery. The emotional weight is significant. The 3-on, 4-off pattern means the worker is effectively “on” for 72 hours straight — even if only actively working for parts of it, they cannot leave, they cannot switch off, they are always the person responsible. This model is not family-friendly: parents, carers, and people with responsibilities outside work cannot commit to 72-hour residential stints. This model works in some settings (care homes with stable populations, for example), but not in a trauma-informed recovery centre where the unpredictability is higher and the emotional demands are concentrated. It also creates a single point of failure: if one of the two live-in workers is unwell, the entire model breaks.
A pool of 4–5 workers, each doing a maximum of two 24-hour shifts per week, employed on PAYE with a per-shift rate that includes a sleepover allowance.
It delivers 24/7 coverage with proper oversight while addressing every failure mode identified in the other options. Nobody does permanent nights. Nobody is on for 72 hours straight. The pool has built-in redundancy, so one person calling in sick does not create a crisis. It costs €102,200 per year — less than any salaried model — and it widens the recruitment pool to students, parents, and anyone who wants meaningful part-time work. It is genuinely family-friendly, allowing people to balance paid work with their lives outside the centre.
The 24-hour shift with a sleepover component is a proven, practical format in Irish residential care. The per-shift pool applies this approach across multiple workers rather than concentrating it in one or two people.
The final model is not the cheapest option on paper — but it is the one most likely to still be working in year three.
Paid workers are more reliable than volunteers. The Tús scheme gives us government-funded people at 20 hours per week, and we only pay for supervision.
3–4 Tús workers, each doing 20 hours per week. Practical daytime support: housekeeping, farm tasks, kitchen prep, grounds. They need Garda vetting, background checks, a basic induction, and ongoing supervision. Some may become permanent team members over time — this is one of the scheme’s best features.
The annual cost to the centre is approximately €5,000 for supervision, training, and management. The government pays their wages.
They get paid, so they show up. Volunteers are grand, but they disappear. Especially when the people on the scheme are getting paid and they’re not.
Without proper oversight, residential settings become unsafe. The policies need to be non-negotiable. The culture needs to make it easy to flag when something is wrong.
Every support worker, Tús worker, and clinical team member will have:
The residential nature of the setting makes this more important, not less. People are vulnerable at night. They are vulnerable in the hours between structured activities. The support worker on shift is not a therapist — their job is presence, not intervention. But they need to know when to call for help, and they need to know they will be supported when they do.
Burnout in residential treatment is not a risk to manage. It is the default outcome if you do not design against it.
4 individual clients per therapist per week. The integrated model means the environment does most of the holding. The therapists do not carry everything.
All salaried staff have flexible schedules. Minimum 2–3 days on-site per week, coordinating with each other to ensure coverage. Start and end times are flexible. Trust-based, not clock-watching. Staff are valued for their presence and contribution, not their hours.
Support workers: maximum 2 × 24hr shifts per week. Nobody does permanent nights.
Staff take annual leave normally, coordinating with each other to ensure coverage. No quarterly closures. The centre operates year-round with rolling enrolment and staggered start dates, including over Easter and Christmas — these are high-risk periods for people in recovery, and closing would leave participants unsupported at the worst possible time. Staff coverage over public holidays is managed through flexible scheduling and the shift pool. One staff retreat week per year (separate from annual leave) provides collective restoration. The homestead keeper's animals are cared for during their absence through a dedicated budget for temporary cover.
One week-long residential retreat per year for the full team (approximately 10–12 staff). Budgeted at €10,000, covering accommodation, food, and restoration activities. Not a training week. A restoration week. The team receives what the participants receive — rest, food, time outdoors, time to talk.
External, independent, non-negotiable. Clinical staff weekly group plus monthly individual sessions. Support workers weekly group supervision. Budgeted at €18,000/year. This is where the invisible strains surface before they become crises.
Working with animals and land is restorative for staff too. The homestead keeper, the chef picking herbs, the therapist walking the boundary with the dog after a difficult session — the environment does not only serve the participants.
The support worker wakes at quarter to seven. The house is quiet. She puts the kettle on and opens the back door. The dog is already outside. The homestead keeper will be here in twenty minutes to start with the animals. By the time the participants surface, the place is alive and warm and smells of tea. She did not have to do anything heroic in the night. She was just there.
| Role | Model | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| Founder / CEO (Sarah) | 1.0 FTE salaried | €65,000 |
| Clinical Lead | 1.0 FTE salaried | €78,000 |
| Somatic / Body Therapist | 0.8 FTE salaried (4 days/week) | €55,000 |
| Lead Chef | 5 days/week salaried, flexible | €46,000 |
| Weekend / Relief Chef | 2–3 days/week salaried, flexible | €24,000 |
| Homestead Keeper | 5 days/week flexible; weekends managed by shift worker | €45,000 |
| Residential Support Pool | 4–5 workers, per-shift PAYE (365 × €280) | €102,200 |
| Admin / Coordinator | 1.0 FTE salaried | €45,000 |
| Visiting GP | Fee arrangement | €22,000 |
| Sessional Practitioners | Per session | €30,000 |
| Tús Scheme Supervision | Management overhead only | €5,000 |
| Homestead holiday cover | Temporary cover when keeper on leave | €4,000 |
| On-call overnight cover | Pool member on-call, reachable within 20–30 mins | €14,600 |
| Clinical Supervision | Weekly group + monthly individual | €18,000 |
| Staff Restoration Retreat | Annual week-long retreat | €10,000 |
| Employer PRSI (11.1%) | On salaried base (€460,200) | ~€51,082 |
| Total annual staffing | ~€592,882 | |
This covers 24/7 residential presence, strategic leadership, two qualified therapists, two chefs with therapeutic nutrition protocols, a homestead keeper, GP access, sessional specialists, on-call backup, enhanced clinical supervision, and burnout protection — for 8–10 participants.
The staffing structure creates the conditions. The following questions need clinical input before the model is finalised.
Briar House CLG · Staff Strategy · Draft · Confidential · March 2026