Dunedin Charity Expands Due To Demand For Mental Health Support

While most people were still enjoying the summer holiday the Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust team was packing up to transition into bigger premises at 63 Hanover Street in Central Dunedin.

Increased demand for peer support for people suffering mental distress and those in crisis put pressure on the trust in its former premises, co-general manager Corinda Taylor said.

We’ve seen a 62% increase in demand for peer support in the last nine months. Our former premises were unable to support this and by moving to a bigger space means the Hope Centre will be able to provide a service that can cope with even more people.

For the last 12 months the Hope Centre has provided a Crisis Café on Thursdays until 9pm for people suffering from a mental health crisis.

“Our objective is to open the Crisis Café more days a week into the evenings to ensure people in crisis are well supported in a non-clinical environment,” co-general manager Clare Curran said.

“We know there is more demand for a safe, supportive space as an alternative to the Emergency Psychiatric Service (EPS) for people suffering a crisis. We now have the space to provide more support. When our funding allows, we would like to provide a crisis service on more nights of the week.”

The public is warmly invited to the opening of the new Hope Centre|Te Whare Tūmanako on Wednesday 15 February at 11am to help us celebrate our new and spacious premises. The premises will be open all day to members of the public wishing to visit.

The new premises will be blessed through a whakawātea conducted by mana whenua, followed by the official opening conducted by Mayor Jules Radich.

Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust and the subsequent setting up of the Hope Centre in 2018 was born out of tragedy when Ross Taylor, aged 20, took his own life in 2013. This grass roots organisation turned a tragedy into action to ensure good support for other young people like Ross. It was set up and developed by people with lived experience. These days the Hope Centre provides mental health peer support, bereavement support and advocacy to ensure that people do not have to struggle to navigate clinical mental health services alone and unsupported.

“It is the connections with others with similar experiences that help us see the light again. When you share about your own experiences others also open up,” Corinda Taylor said.

The trust, which is completely reliant for its existence on grants and donations, is grateful for the donations provided by the public enabling the move to bigger premises, she said.

Life Matters asks people who are unable to attend and want to donate to our cause to check out The Good Registry link

© Scoop Media