We’re very excited with the work that’s occurring as part of our Wellington expansion, as it’s making a significant contribution towards the achievement of our strategic intent, ‘Actively seeking new frontiers, rewarding innovation and pursuing excellence in the provision of a continuum of tailored supports’.

We’re now providing planned break support to more than 100 families across the Wellington region, offering people a well-earned break, and their families the opportunity to socialise and grow with others. This expansion also now encompasses further opportunities to serve more families and their loved ones, while ensuring we maintain a high standard of support for our existing families and people we support.

We’ve also launched a variety of flexible, fee-for-service support options which allow families to engage with us in new ways, including school holiday and after-school programmes and weekend-day planned break options. There is clearly a significant unmet need for such services, as our programmes have experienced more than 10-fold growth since launch.

Spectrum Care now offers a wide range of school holiday programmes for students aged 5-16 with physical and/or intellectual disabilities (including profound disability). We provide 10 programmes across the Auckland, Northland, Waikato and Wellington regions, which are accessed via a fee-for-service and/or part-payment via Carer Support, as well as three fully-funded programmes in the Auckland region, which are accessed via NASC referral.

The demand for additional holiday planned breaks resulted in the two planned break programmes being added recently in the Wellington region and we’re very pleased to be supporting more than a dozen families, with more joining in time for the next holiday period. We’ve also seen significant growth in our new North Shore school holiday programme, with nearly 50 families currently receiving support.

As interest in living a more independent life has increased, we’ve committed to improving how we work with people (and their families) living in our residential homes who want to make this move. While in the early stages, we believe we’re laying strong foundations for future growth.

We’re moving towards a supportive environment that offers families and people with disabilities more control over the supports they receive – to take a more active role in how they live their lives – and we look forward to an increasingly ‘partnership-oriented’ role in the co-design of people’s support options.

To find out more about our School Holiday Programmes, simply email schoolholidayprogramme@spectrumcare.org.nz.