New Te Piringa Āhuru Crisis Recovery Café Opens in South Auckland

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey today officially opened Te Piringa Āhuru, South Auckland’s new Crisis Recovery Café.

A brightly lit, busy emergency department is often not the best environment for someone in mental distress. That’s why we are rolling out eight new crisis recovery cafés across the country, so more New Zealanders have a calm, peer-led, non-clinical space to go to for support, Mr Doocey says.

We know that each community can be different. That’s why I have always said the solutions already exist within our grassroots organisations, they just need to be supported. Ember has been operating in South Auckland for the last six years, already making a difference, and will now be running the café and reaching even more people.

Ember named the café Te Piringa Āhuru to signify it as a place of safety and belonging, and a space where there is hope, which I think is a fitting name for this space.

The café will have peer support workers who can link people back into community services, lend a listening ear, and offer people experiencing mental health or addiction challenges a place to sit down in a relaxed setting.

There is real power in knowing there is someone in the room who has walked a similar journey and come through it, it can give people real hope. I have been pleased to hear firsthand the real difference these roles are already making. One worker told me that, reflecting on her own experience, the peer support service is exactly what she wishes she had when she was struggling, someone who can say, I see you, I hear you, I know what you’re going through.

We are better utilising peer support workers in a range of settings, including emergency departments, eating disorder services, and crisis alternatives.

I was recently in Whanganui, where I opened the first of eight cafés, as well as New Plymouth and Whakatāne, to announce they received a boost in funding from the Government. I look forward to continuing the roll out.

Crisis cafés form part of our mental health plan. Last month, I announced a crisis response package that includes more clinical workers in crisis assessment teams, two new 10-bed peer-led acute alternative services, and additional peer support workers in emergency departments and crisis recovery cafés.

My focus is on delivering faster access to support, more frontline workers, and a better crisis response.

Note to editors: The café has been operating from a temporary site since late September last year and has now moved to the new site.