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Disability Respite Options and Services in the
Southern Metropolitan Region of Melbourne, Victoria
Welcome to the Southern Metropolitan Disability Respite Network website.
Respite Southern is designed to improve information provision on respite options for people with a disability in the Southern Metropolitan Region and to facilitate communication between organisations providing these services. The site is an initiative of the Southern Regional Disability Respite Reference Network.
The Southern Metropolitan Region is one of 8 regions of the Department of Human Services in the state of Victoria. It comprises 10 local government areas in Melbourne's south-east, which include Port Phillip, Stonnington, Glen Eira, Bayside, Kingston, Greater Dandenong, Casey, Frankston, Mornington Peninsula and Cardinia. With 1.126 million people it represents approximately one quarter of the state's population.
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What is Respite?
Respite provides short term and time limited breaks for families and other voluntary caregivers of people with disabilities on a planned or emergency basis, to support and maintain the primary caregiving relationship while providing a positive experience for the person with a disability.
For instance,
respite can be planned or unplanned or happen in response to a crisis or emergency situation.
respite can be regular, happening at a regular time each week or at regular intervals or can be arranged only as required at irregular times
respite can last a few hours, overnight or for several days
Examples of respite include:
Recreation and community participation: provision of a support worker to enable people with disabilities to make friends, and /or take part in recreation activities, camps, holidays or group recreation programs.
Residential respite: overnight or longer stay in residential facilities.
Out of home community based respite: service may include overnight or weekend breaks using a range of community facilities including holiday homes and serviced apartments supported by trained care givers.
In-Home respite: services provided in the home of the person requiring support by Home and Community Care Services (HACC) including local Councils, specialist providers or by private attendant care agencies. In-home respite is usually provided for a few hours either in the home or in the community but can also be arranged overnight or longer.
Respite in care providers' homes: some programs provide respite in host carers own home eg Interchange, foster care, foster grandparents, family day care.
The Victorian State Government and the Australian Government both fund the Commonwealth Carer Respite Centre Southern Metropolitan Region to provide information about respite support through the Careline service.
Careline operates 24 hours, 7 days a week on 1800 052 222.
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