Respite – Personally Designed For You

Having time away from home and giving each other a break is important to many individuals and their families. At Milparinka we provide planned respite support in a number of ways.

  • The main way is through recreational activities that support people to have time away from home, when it suits them. The timing of this support is totally up to you. We know that having a break is going to be a lot better when people are able to do what they want to do, who they want to do it with and when they want to do it. Some people we know access recreation support as respite every week while others attend regularly once a month while others come along on an irregular basis. What people do depends on them, some people prefer just them and a support worker, while others want to spend time with a small group of 2 to 3 friends doing things where they share a common interest. For example, going to the movies or theatre, going out for dinner and to see a band, bushwalking, swimming or attending public events amongst other things.

We know that for some people when times are stressful it is not always easy to be in a position to tell us what activities you want to do. If that is you just have a chat to us and we will have notice boards of ideas and activities for you to choose from.

  • We can stay in your home. We know from working alongside lots of families that it doesn’t always make sense for the person with the disability to leave the family home for everyone to have a break. Sometimes people just don’t like change, or prefer the responsibility of being at home without parents. At other times parents have somewhere that they want to go to stay for a break. In these cases, our staff can stay in your home during the day or overnight while family members are away.
  • Overnight stays away. Staying away from your home overnight doesn’t mean that you have to spend the night in a specialised house with a large group of other people who have disabilities who you don’t know. Get some mates and go away for a night or two to the beach, country or city. Make respite a great trip away, either with yourself and a staff member or preferably with a friend or two as well. Plan for respite to be an enjoyable time, it’s a better rest when it’s fun.

Please note that our respite is planned, we do not do emergency respite at this stage.