LOCAL National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) registered provider, Empowered Champions, has revealed it will be opening a respite centre designed for younger people.
The NDIS-registered respite centre is a short-term all abilities accommodation service focused on, but not limited to, ages 13 to 40, and will be called Palms Respite Retreat.
The respite centre aims to offer a safe space with facilities for gardening, cooking, comfortable rooms with large televisions, spaces for guests to invite friends over, and somewhere people can relax.
Empowered Champions founder Harley Cannard, and his wife, director and registered provider Rebecca Blundell, are setting up the project after seeing a lack of care options for young people with disabilities.
“We’ve been offering support to Broken Hill for six years in Empowered Champions and seen a need for respite with our own participants and also within the community,” Ms Blundell said.
“There are respite facilities already running, and we’ve had the privilege to be able to see some of the facilities around town as well as in other places around Australia.
“We’re quite proactive in seeing what other towns and cities have to offer.
“Our goal and vision has always been to provide Broken Hill with a point of difference.”
For Ms Blundell, a respite centre needed to be somewhere she would want to stay herself.
“In the bigger towns and cities, we see respites that look more like a retreat, like a place that you would go for a getaway, opposed to just a house with furniture,” she said.
“Our vision, our goal, has always been a bit different.
“We’ve always wanted to provide a place where participants can feel that bit of luxury and feel a bit spoiled.
“A lot of participants don’t get to go away or travel much due to limitations they may have.
“So we’ve always had a vision to provide a place that we would want to go ourselves, that if we were traveling or wanted accommodation, we’d feel comfortable in.
“It would have all the perks that we’d expect in a nice resort or a hotel.
“A place to have barbecues and have friends over for dinner, not just restricted to the participant having respite on their own.”
Ms Blundell said the centre aims to have a holistic approach in mind.
“Our whole program allows a participant to not just get respite, but to get a full getaway,” she said.
“They can grow vegetables, water the garden, pick things from the garden, they might do some cooking if they want to, or just choose to sit in their room and watch TV.”
The programs at the centre will be tailored to the individual and for younger members of the community.
“We don’t offer personal care or complex care at this stage, or high intensity support, because there’s a lot of places already in town that are offering this, and they’re all doing a great job in those areas.
“We’re focusing more on the younger generations, because that’s where we see the gap and need.”
Ms Blundell said the retreat will hopefully be up and running by Easter.
