Peer Respites: What Do You Think?

Figured I'd get some interesting opinions here.

What do you think of psych programs through community service programs that advocate peer run services? Like, for example, a peer respite house where you could stay for a couple weeks or so when you're feeling like you need some mental support, and be in an environment where the staff all have mental health lived experience? Not a hospital, just a house where you can leave and go as you please, room with maybe one other person, participate in cooking meals, and attending different kinds of groups (i.e, mindfulness, Hearing Voices, e.t.c) run by the staff? What difference do you think that would make compared to the lockdown/insensitivity/'idiocracy' of hospitals, if anything?

I think that people with severe mental illnesses who are a threat to themselves and/or a threat to others should be taken to a hospital where they can receive proper care and treatment. With that said, once they are able to function normally, I think that a peer respite group is a great idea. Helps to build social relationships through common ground and understanding of one another.

Yeah. The one I work at has had some interesting incidents with those who felt like ending their life and made a plan to, were hearing voices telling them to do it, e.t.c. We always have the option of calling the crisis intervention and getting them taken to the hospital . . . but that's usually a last resort. Sometimes I think if we could mix the two some how . . . get rid of the freakish doctors in the hospitals and replace them with people who perhaps have the same education, but also have the lived experience . . . seems like it would make a drastic difference.