These services provide a place for you to stay while you get support to make changes to your drug use.
Residential treatment services (rehabs) provide intensive support that helps you explore different areas of your life and learn new skills. These are often long-term programmes that you stay in for several weeks or months.
Supported accommodation provides a place for you to live in while you are making changes. These providers may have some therapeutic services available and often can help you access other support. You may find these places helpful before or after using a residential treatment service.
Respite care is short-term care that is staffed 24/7 for people who are extremely distressed. People often only stay in respite care for a few days.
How could it be helpful?
Residential treatment
Residential treatment programmes involve living and learning together as a community in a single house. You will need to be ready to talk and work with other people while you work on your own situation.
These programmes give you an opportunity to fully focus on yourself, diving deep into your life experiences, and giving you ‘full-time’ practice of useful skills. Most programmes are several weeks or months, so you will need to be ready to make a significant change to your life and be able to step away from home and work responsibilities.
Some programmes include individual and group therapy sessions, as well as focusing on specific areas like managing withdrawal, life skills, communication skills, whānau/family engagement, and connection with culture.
These programmes are ideal for people who are wanting to completely stop using drugs and other addictive behaviours.
If you’re considering a residential programme, it can help to explore different options as many of these programmes are tailored for different needs. Some examples of tailored programmes are:
- He Waka Tapu and Manaaki Ora provide residential support based on Kaupapa Māori principles.
- Higher Ground and Odyssey have programmes for parents to stay with their babies. Both also have standard residential programmes for adults as well.
- Odyssey House in Christchurch have a programme for teenagers and residential programmes for adults.
- Moana House provide support for tāne (men) with a connection to the criminal justice system.
- Salvation Army Bridge Programmes provide residential support using the 12-step model and a Community Reinforcement Approach that helps people connect with activities and strengthen social relationships.
- Odyssey have residential programmes in Auckland and Whangārei that support adults who are experiencing both mental health and addictions challenges.
Supported accommodation
Supported accommodation provides places for people to stay while they are making changes. These are often used by people before and after they stay in a residential treatment programme. Sometimes transitioning back to independent living after a long time in a residential programme can be a tough process. These services provide useful support to help people make the transition. They can also give you an opportunity to find employment and a place to stay, while getting support to stay on-track with your goals. Many are closely linked with residential treatment providers, so you can continue accessing similar support while you stay in supported accommodation.
Respite care
Respite care provides a place for people to stay for a few days when things get overwhelming. Respite care offers 24/7 staffed support to help people who are extremely distressed and need a break with support close by. They can also help make referrals to other support options.
How to access?
For residential treatment you can refer yourself to some of these services. Some will have different requirements for different areas in New Zealand, based on their funding. They may require you to get a referral from another health or social service. It could be useful to visit your local addictions service to get a comprehensive addiction assessment first and explore whether residential treatment is a useful option for you. Publicly funded residential services are mostly free to access. Some may ask for a financial contribution.
There are also private residential providers who are not publicly funded. These providers often have a cost to access. If you are considering paying for a private residential treatment service, check if they have accreditations to provide residential services and that they hire registered health professional staff. Publicly funded services are regularly audited to meet sector standards, such as the Ngā paerewa Health and disability service standard. Private services are not required to be audited and don’t have to hire registered health professionals. It's best to check with them and ask questions to make sure they will meet the standard of care you are paying for.
For respite services you usually need a referral from a health professional, who could be your doctor (GP), mental health worker, or addiction practitioner. Talk with them about your options if you feel like you might need respite care.
You can use Health Point to find residential treatment and supported accommodation in your area.
Real experiences
"I go to see a counsellor and I open up to her. I say, look, I'm up on class A. I'm about to go to jail. I really want to change. She's like, will you go into rehab next week? And I was like, yes. Like the voice was just guiding me. Yes. So I went into rehab a week later and I got two months clean."
- Dylan
"[residential treatment is] a really safe and secure place where people care about you...If your life is out of control because of drugs, it's like perfect. Because you're out of that environment. You're not tempted, you know, no temptation from using. You've got people, dedicated counselors, looking after you. You know, you've got guidance. You've got meetings... you've got proper healthy food, and you can really get your life back on track. And it's worked for a lot of people."
- Dylan
“I think the most important thing was – I felt for the first time there was somebody who wanted to help me and that wasn’t judging me and was warm and real, and I felt I had someone on my side.”
- Anon