Download the Annual Report 2010 (pdf)

Since the earthquake in February, Cholmondeley has been operating its Care Services for children from Bellbird Heights at Living Springs. If you need to get in touch with Cholmondeley please call the same number 03 3299832.

Cholmondeley's core service is the provision of emergency and planned short term respite care for children, whose families are experiencing significant stress or difficulties. We have temporarily updated the age of children who stay with us from 3-12 years to 5-12 years. This is because of the physical environment at Living Springs.

Located down Cholmondeley Lane, overlooking the sea, Cholmondeley (Chum-ley) was formally opened on Saturday 7 March 1925. The land and purpose-built home were donated by Hugh Heber Cholmondeley as a memorial to his wife Margaret who had died unexpectedly on a visit home to England.

Cholmondeley's core business has always been a community based, directly accessible respite care service for children whose families are experiencing significant stress or difficulties. This involves a short stay of several days to 2 weeks. While numerous children come to us for regular stays throughout the year we are also able to offer care in emergencies.

This service operates outside of the statutory sector and only some of the families we work with will have involvement with Child, Youth and Family.

Cholmondeley is the only community based short term and emergency respite care provider in New Zealand and one of a few international facilities of its kind. This makes Cholmondeley truly unique. This means that parents can contact Cholmondeley direct to ask for assistance. They don't have to go through any other social service provider or state provider.

An average of 15-18 children per day stay at Cholmondeley for an average of 10 days. Usually around 80% of referrals are from Christchurch, the rest coming from wider Canterbury and other South Island provinces.

Over the last 85 years Cholmondeley estimates it will have looked after around 25,000 children.

From a partnership perspective Cholmondeley has developed very strong relationships with many individuals, businesses and companies in Canterbury. These organisations and the community bring in over 70% of Cholmondeley's funding. This is made up of individual, organisation and corporate donations, trust and grant funding, funding from multiple events, a regular giving programme and direct mail.

The model we work with is within the family preservation and early intervention stage of the continuum of services for children and their families. Cholmondeley is able to release the tension within families so care and protection issues for the children don't escalate to the point where the statutory services such as Child, Youth and Family are required to intervene.

Our key goals moving forward are that the service remains immediately accessible to children and families who need us, and that we are increasing the level of partnerships with other social service providers in the sector, working collaboratively with them as part of a wrap around approach for families in need.