Beth-Shean Trust

Beth-Shean Trust was set up in 1995 to work in any area of community need that the trustees felt called of God to work in. Our primary focus is mental health and well-being. Our mission is to promote hope and wholeness through the provision of safe, quality community-based services, by working in partnership with people recovering from mental health and emotional issues.

We provide crisis respite for Auckland DHB community mental health services (adult) and occasional additional respite for other ADHB mental health services. This includes residential round the clock staffing. Generally this is for 3-4 nights per person in homelike surroundings.

Transitional accommodation - a 7-bed home in Mt Albert, semi- independent shared living for people working on their own recovery from mental or emotional health issues, with their own support people. Staff provide oversight of house, as ’supportive landlord’ only. Self-referral for people using mental health services. Can’t take people with substance use issues.

This kind of respite is a short-term residential intervention to help support a person who is experiencing a lot of stress, and/or is at risk of becoming mentally unwell or going to hospital. For some people respite may be a viable alternative to a hospital admission. Sometimes people stay in respite after being in hospital, to get some extra support for their recovery before returning home.

• While a person is in respite, they are encouraged to pursue regular activities if those are helpful to their recovery, as well as having opportunity to rest, socialise, catch up on sleep, and take time out from stressful situations that cause unwellness. Being away from a situation can enable people to get a different perspective, and do some constructive problem-solving.
• Respite may also provide opportunities to learn more ways of dealing with stress or distress, to work on recovery tasks, and to look at what recovery means in that person’s life context. Respite plans are always made in partnership with the person and their clinical teams at the ADHB, who visit people daily in respite, and are on-call to staff and guests if required.

The trust is a New Zealand registered charitable trust (#CC37281) and is member of Platform, the NGO network of mental health and addictions organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand.

People access respite for many reasons, and from many situations. These have included:

• Experiencing early warning signs (EWS) of illness
• Being suicidal or prone to self-harm
• Not sleeping
• Situational stresses at home or elsewhere
• Dealing with alcohol or other drugs
• Changing medications
• Lack of other supports
• Traumatic events