A break that everybody actually gets a break from.
0115 Assistance with daily life tasks in a group or shared living arrangement
Short-term accommodation and respite, plus medium-term accommodation when housing falls through — with support workers who know the participant before they arrive.
Family carers who need reliable cover, and participants between housing arrangements.
Respite only works if the participant enjoys it and the family can stop worrying. Most of the time it fails on one or the other. We run short-term accommodation as a stay rather than a placement: the participant knows where they are going and who will be there, the family gets a genuine break, and nobody comes home more tired than when they left. We also provide medium-term accommodation for the situations where housing has fallen through and a participant needs somewhere to be while it gets sorted out.
What we provide
Short-term accommodation and respite — a night, a weekend, or a longer stay, with support across the whole time rather than just at handover
Support workers the participant has already met — wherever we can, respite is staffed by someone from the participant’s existing team
Activities that are actually the participant’s idea — a stay is not a program; we ask what they want to do with the time
Medium-term accommodation — where a participant needs somewhere to live while housing, SDA or a home modification is being resolved
Individualised Living Options support — where a participant is building a living arrangement that does not fit the standard shapes
Personal care and clinical support during the stay — including high-intensity supports where the participant needs them, delivered by workers signed off for the task
Cultural and faith continuity — food, prayer, language and family contact do not pause because someone is away from home
A written handover in both directions — what happened, what worked, what to know next time
Who it's for
A family carer who has not had a night off in two years and needs cover they will not spend the whole weekend worrying about
A participant between housing arrangements — a tenancy ended, a modification is underway, a SIL vacancy is weeks away
A coordinator planning a staged transition, where a short stay is the sensible step between one arrangement and the next
What makes us different
Respite is often sold to the family and endured by the participant. We start the other way round: what would make this a good few days for the person actually going? Being a multicultural, family-led team matters here in a specific way — for a lot of the families we work with, the idea of someone else caring for your relative carries real weight, sometimes shame, and just take a break is not useful advice. We talk about it as it is, we keep the family in contact for as long as they need to be, and we send updates rather than waiting to be asked. And because our respite is usually staffed from the participant’s existing team, the stay is not a stay with strangers.
How it usually unfolds
For a planned stay we like a few weeks’ notice, though we can move faster when something has fallen over. We start with a conversation about the participant — routines, food, sleep, what unsettles them, what they enjoy — then confirm the dates, the support ratio and what the plan funds. Where possible the participant visits first, briefly, so arriving is not the first time they have seen the place. During the stay the family gets updates at whatever frequency they want, including none. Afterwards we send a short written handover, and we say honestly if something did not work, because the next stay should be better than the last one.
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