Implementing Recovery - a US perspective

In September 2009, Gene Johnson, President of Recovery Innovations in Arizona, delivered an inspiring lecture on recovery from the US perspective.

Gene is a great ambassador for recovery. He shows what can be done when organisations really start to appreciate people's potential for growth and for using their experiences rather than being limited / defined by them.

"We changed our mind", he says, from an entitlement / disability / victim belief system to one of ability / empowerment / personal responsibility and accountability, and the enlightenment it produces.

Videos of his speech are available on the Centre for Mental Health website.
They are best viewed along with his slides.
The transcript is also available here.

Developing Recovery Oriented Practice -

A guide to writing reports and letters

Recovery and Independent Living PEG Advisory Paper 9

This Guide has been produced by Devon Partnership Trust to support mental health workers.

It states:

"If we are to ‘Put recovery at the heart of all we do’ that includes our written communications and in particular those that we share with people who use services e.g. letters between practitioners about them and reports for managers hearings and Mental Health Review Tribunals.

But what does that mean in practice?

A recovery oriented approach to the creation of our written communications is an application of recovery supportive values and principles to our letters, reports, notes and records which can increasingly be co-created with the people they are about. It does not avoid or confuse difficult truths but describes them such as to support recovery."

Download the full Guide here

Recovery Orientated Prescribing
and Medicines Management

Medication is often a significant part of the intervention that is offered to people who use mental health services but limited guidance has been available on the use of medication to support personal recovery. 

The Recovery and Independent Living PEG have carried out a project to develop such guidance and have now produced an advisory paper.

The paper can be used by workers to support them in putting recovery principles into practice in relation to prescribing and medicines management.

Putting recovery at the heart of all we do

This leaflet describes how recovery will be implemented in Devon and Torbay.

It is sometimes known as the 'Daisy Pages'.

It has been described as the best use of an A4 sheet of paper - Ever!

To download it (pdf, 4 A5 pages), please click here.