Two New Resources on Peer Respites Available

Please click on the links below or on our National Empowerment Center partners page to download these documents.

Peer respites are voluntary, short-term, residential programs designed to support individuals experiencing or at risk of experiencing a mental health crisis. These programs are staffed and operated by peers with lived experience of the mental health system who have professional training in providing crisis support to build mutual, trusting relationships.

The Toolkit for Evaluating Peer Crisis Respites is intended for use by evaluators, government officials, and peer-to-peer program staff and managers. It can be used to document program operations and outcomes and to build evidence for the efficacy of peer crisis respites. This resource includes recommendations on best practices in evaluation based on evaluation and data monitoring techniques used by other peer crisis respites. It encompasses a range of strategies for collecting and reporting data. In this context, data is any information that was collected from individuals who use the respite or people working there, regardless of whether people used these strategies for research or for reporting to their constituents and funders.

Basic Characteristics of Peer Respites: During the summer and fall of 2014, we contacted 19 current and planned respite programs to participate in a survey, and representatives from 17 programs responded. We asked program representatives about some of the basic characteristics of their peer respites—including funding, staffing, and policies regarding guests. The purpose of this report is to share information on current characteristics of existing peer respites to inform program development in other states and localities, and provide information for other interested stakeholders.