A flower-lined road leads from the gates of the property down to the 19^th century sandstone pavilion on the waterfront. Extending along the outside walls is a frieze depicting fruit-bearing cherubs and above the main entrance stands an intricately detailed, three-story tower. There are lush gardens of pink and white azaleas, ancient Moretan Bay figs, palm trees and Norfolk Island pines. Inside are Renaissance-style courtyards and fountains, stained-glass windows and wood panelling designed by Italian and English artisans.

It is a far cry from any refugee camp and yet this is where many refugee children spend time in their first months or years in Australia. Rivendell Adolescent Unit, as the place is known, is located at Rocky Point in Sydney’s inner west. It was established as a hospital in 1893 and became a residential treatment centre for children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders in 1977.

However, the Adolescent Unit only operates during school terms. During school holidays the premises, and a few of the staff, are handed over to three services in Sydney’s south-west who use it to run recreational camps for newly arrived refugee children. The services are the Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS), Sydney Indo-Chinese Refugee Youth Support Group (SICRYS) and the Spanish and Latin American Association for Social Assistance (SLASA).

STARTTS runs two camps a year from Rivendell for children aged between 10 and 13. The camps last for five days and are attended by about 30 children. Gary Cachia, a youth worker at STARTTS, believes the camps are an important way of breaking down the isolation experienced by many refugee young people. In doing so, they help prevent the development of depression and other mental health problems later on. The camps also provide an ideal environment for the identification of any problems the child already has.

Cachia, who has been running the camps for STARTTS since 1994, has found children who suffer sexual and physical abuse, neglect, eating disorders, bouts of aggressive behaviour, communication difficulties, nightmares, flashbacks to past traumatic experiences and memory and concentration difficulties.

Once he has identified a problem, a plan is devised: "In most situations we can implement a plan before the end of the week," says Cachia. Gaining the support of the child’s parents or school can be crucial to the success of any plan and they are often instrumental in monitoring the child’s progress. Depending on what the child’s problem is they may also be referred for individual counselling or group work. Cachia has run numerous groups for Serbian, Bosnian, Lao, East Timorese and Middle Eastern young people, according to the level of demand at a particular time.

Rivendell’s specialist medical staff assist in identifying problems, designing treatment programs and finding appropriate referral services. While they are not as intensively involved with the children as Cachia, who has ongoing contact with them, their expertise in child and adolescent issues is extremely valuable.

Rivendell nurses, Gerry McShane and Paul O’Keefe, have been present at many STARTTS’ camps. Over the years, they have acquired a considerable knowledge of the impact of pre and post-migration experiences on the children. They have also learnt to be aware of the particular sensitivities of refugee youth. "When we went [with the kids] to Bicentennial Park one time all the construction work they were doing meant there were big mounds of dirt everywhere and some of the kids were worried about mass graves," says McShane.

Both McShane and O’Keefe emphasise that although the camps provide a good opportunity to assess the children it is important to ensure that first and foremost, the children have fun. The camps are very much about giving the children positive experiences to counteract the tragedies of their past.

In this regard, the camps appear to have been a great success. Nidia Mendoca, of East Timorese origin, attended her first Rivendell camp in 1993, after she had been in Australia for several months. "[I remember] the amazing activities that were offered. The staff were funny and a bit tricky as well. I just liked the environment and that’s why I ended up going more and more. I liked the fact that I could meet people from different countries and actually learn a bit about their culture as well," says Nidia.

Nidia is now 20 years old and completing a TAFE diploma in youth work. "I was so interested in policy making and people’s rights…I read the course outline [for the youth work diploma] and I thought it was something interesting and something that I would want to do but I think it took me back to the [Rivendell] camps as well," says Nidia.

The most valuable thing Nidia got from the camps, she says, is an ability to be less serious. She also became more confident of her communication skills: "I became more open because of my involvement in [group] activities where we had to talk. I was really reluctant to do that at first. I was really shy but they made me feel comfortable in that environment," she says.

Nidia intends to work with non-English speaking background youth when she finishes her diploma at the end of the year. She hopes to eventually do a degree in international community work at the University of Western Sydney.

Shermarkee Salah, aged 13, arrived in Australia with his mother and seven siblings in 1996. They had spent two years in a refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing the civil war in Somalia. A year later, Shermarkee attended his first Rivendell camp. "The camps are fun and you get to meet people," says Shermarkee. "The best thing was when we had to do something on stage at the first camp I went to. Me and my brother were singing," he says. Shermarkee and his brother Abdi were such a success that they were asked to sing at the launch of a youth video earlier this year.

Shermarkee says he has made many good friends on the camps and is still in contact with one, from the former Yugoslavia, and another, from Iraq. Despite being hindered by a lack of English when he first arrived, English and grammar are now his best subjects at school and he frequently gets higher marks than other, Australian born, students in his class.

One of the first activities that children participate in, upon arriving at Rivendell, is a treasure hunt. The group is split up into several teams which work together to solve clues and compete against the other groups to find the treasure. It is an ideal activity for breaking the ice and getting the children to familiarise themselves with the new environment. Apart from the recreational activities and outings, the children engage in a number of structured group activities where they discuss the common issues facing them and learn things such as anger management and communication skills.

Although Cachia has heard trenchant stories from children about their experiences, he is sustained by what he has been able to achieve during the camps. For example, one Bosnian girl who attended the camps had lost both her brother and father in the war: "She wouldn’t communicate and she wouldn’t show any emotions. It took three programs but we got her communicating with other children and adults, smiling and laughing. We got her to behave childishly and to misbehave and to test boundaries which, for a child which was completely numb to the outside world, was a huge change," says Cachia.

The camps tend to break down any ethnic or racial barriers that may exist between children. This is particularly so, says Cachia, with children from Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia: "When you look at their parents in the morning they won’t speak to each other…but the children become good friends. After [the children attend] two or three programs and follow-up activities, the parents come along and the parents even start to build relationships with each other."

Camps specifically for Indo-Chinese and Latin American youth are held at other times in the year. These camps are organised by SICRYS and SLASA and have similar goals to the STARTTS camps. Last year, STARTTS and SLASA won awards from Sydney’s Transcultural Mental Health Centre for their youth programs. This year, SICRYS has been nominated for the same award.

Cachia concedes that Rivendell can be a daunting place for a young child unused to such lavish surroundings. "On first impressions for a small child it can be a very frightening place but once that fear is overcome, I think that has a magnificent therapeutic value in terms that not all fear should be kept," he says. He is quick to point out that it is not a sterile environment, that there is evidence that other children have been there. It is, ultimately, a place that is warm and welcoming for children. "A lot of children ask me what does the name ‘Rivendell’ mean," says Cachia. "I go into a long story of Tolkien’s story of the Hobbit and the place where fairies live. They are quite excited by that."