Our Story
A Short History of Recovery Devon
| Laurie Davidson, an inspirational founder member of Recovery Devon, has provided the following article. |  |
"Recovery as a set of radical ideas for moving away from ‘treatment and cure’ towards ‘living a good life, with or without symptoms’ had evolved in parts of the US and New Zealand in the late 1990s.
Between 2001 and 2003, a few enthusiasts in Devon were introducing the ideas in an ad hoc way through local workshops and by revising the Care Programme Approach to reflect recovery values. These enthusiasts, who were a mix of people with experience of services, either directly or as supporters, mental health professionals and voluntary sector organisers, formed a group to set up a conference with the aim of engaging as many people of good will as possible to have an effect on the whole system ‘from the bottom up’. This was a conscious decision because past experience had shown us that a ‘top down’ approach could both alienate and take away ownership.
2003 Conference
A two day conference was organised for October 2003 to fit around a visit by Mary Ellen Copeland, from Vermont, US, the founder of the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) approach. The week before, Dr Glenn Roberts and Laurie Davidson attended a five-day WRAP training with Mary Ellen in Stockport, which enabled a roll out of WRAP training across Devon over the next few years, with more and more WRAP trainers emerging.
| At the conference, Mary Ellen and WRAP inspired all those who attended, as WRAP translated recovery values into action in a way that was accessible for all. Self management, rather than ‘being managed’ by professionals, was such an empowering concept that there was a clear call after the conference to continue meeting to develop WRAP and recovery. |  |
Starting Out
From the small first meeting in 2003 in the back room of a café (following a long tradition of radical and revolutionary groups) in Exeter, the group has continued to meet regularly. Originally called ‘Devon Partnerships for Mental Health Recovery’, the group spread the word about recovery from within teams or peer support groups.
Recovery Devon has had no fixed membership – dates and places are advertised and meetings are open to all. A chairperson is appointed for each meeting at the meeting and there are no permanent posts within the group. This was to ensure a democratic and inclusive ethos.
More recently a small steering group has taken responsibility for ensuring that meetings take place and work taken on by the group is carried out. People who attend are just people; rather than labelled as professionals or people who use services. The group has never sought to ‘evangelise’ about or force recovery; rather to create change through feeding the energy of those who can see the huge potential for radical and permanent culture change implied within the values of recovery.
The group organised a further conference in 2006 in North Devon, where among the speakers were Shery Mead (who developed Intentional Peer Support), Frank Bristol from New Zealand and David Gonzales from New York. All speakers had experienced services themselves and this added credibility to the concepts of recovery, self management, wellness and thriving. Local pioneers of recovery ran workshops and friendships and alliances were formed across Devon which accelerated the process of winning hearts and minds.
At this conference, Richard Brabrook launched the first Recovery Devon website which pulled together key papers and source material on recovery and self management as well as being a shop front for the developments in Devon.
| Following the conference, the group decided to call itself Recovery Devon, as less of a mouthful and coming in line with the new Website. A series of newsletters charted progress and formed a permanent archive of the story of recovery in Devon. |  |
2007 Intentional Peer Support
In April 2007 the group organised a week long residential Intentional Peer Support run by Shery Mead and Chris Hansen in Bovey Tracey for 30 people with lived experience. This gave confidence to a strong group who have been very active in Recovery Devon. Recovery Devon has led in the development of trainers with lived experience, a programme of WRAP training and guided recovery developments for around five years.
2008 Visitors and Conferences
| In the summer of 2008, Recovery Devon staged open meetings, inviting three influential people in the history of recovery; Rachel Perkins and colleagues from St George’s and South West London, Mike Slade, who had just completed a research tour of world recovery sites and Mary O’Hagan, who had been the main architect of recovery services in New Zealand. The latter two prepared reports with recommendations for developing recovery in Devon. Recovery Devon then held two major conferences to plan the implementation of these reports. This remains one of the ongoing tasks of the group. |  |
Recent Developments
Since 2007, the values and practical application of recovery have been adopted by commissioners and managers throughout the whole mental health community in Devon. This ‘top down’ commitment combined with the ‘bottom up’ developments of Recovery Devon meant a bloodless coup had been achieved. The Recovery and Independent Living group of the statutory and third sectors commissioned work on changing the culture of mental health through a recovery strategy, recovery outcomes, Support Time and Recovery Worker training, a revised approach towards CPA (Care Programme Approach) as recovery coordination, integrating WRAP, recovery and medication, key standards for recovery and other practical changes to the building blocks of the mental health system.
Although much of the day to day work of implementing recovery is now seen as the responsibility of everyone, the role of Recovery Devon remains vital as the independent guardians of recovery; making sure that changes are consistent with these values and providing the vision for the next steps on this exciting journey.
Recently, the Recovery Devon website was given a facelift and this is consistent with never resting on our laurels, but always looking for the new challenges and engaging all the talent and good will available in Devon to take recovery forward."
