Kites Trust

Kites Trust is a peer-led organization which values and utilizes people’s lived experience of mental health to promote social inclusion and full citizenship rights for people with lived experience of mental health distress or living with a mental health diagnosis. Kites has been delivering the Buddies Peer Support Service, a volunteer-based mental health peer support service, at the acute-recovery units at Hutt Valley and Wellington Hospitals for over 20 years. The Buddies Peer Support volunteers and paid mentors walk alongside, extend peer support to, and share the hope of recovery with tangata whai ora/people seeking wellness and experiencing mental health crisis at the acute-recovery units at Hutt Valley and Wellington Hospitals. Kites also runs Kites Youth Peer, peer support groups for youth in the community. The youth peer support groups are led by volunteer youth peer leaders/facilitators.