Resources and Studies
Research and literature reviews:
Anthony, W.A. (1993). Recovery from Mental Illness: The Guiding Vision of the Mental Health Service System in the 1990s. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal. 16(4), 11–23.
This article outlines the fundamental services and assumptions of a recovery-oriented mental health system. As the recovery concept becomes better understood, it could have major implications for how future mental health systems are designed.
Mental Health Coordinating Council. (2013 a). Recovery Oriented Service Self-Assessment Toolkit (ROSSAT) – ROSSAT Implementation Project: Literature Review. Sydney.
This literature review builds upon and updates the information and findings of the 2009 Literature Review on Recovery.
NSW Consumer Advisory Group – Mental Health Inc. and the Mental Health Coordinating Council. (2009). Literature Review on Recovery. Sydney.
This literature review examines the barriers to, and the facilitators of recovery, and suggests what needs to happen to make genuine recovery oriented service delivery a reality.
Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. (2009). Implementing Recovery: A new framework for organisational change. London, England.
This position paper details the 10 key organisational challenges in implementing recovery in organisations.
SAMHSA. (2012). SAMHSA's Working Definition of Recovery. Rockville, MD, United States of America: SAMHSA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In consultation with many stakeholders, SAMHSA has developed a working definition and set of principles for recovery.
Shepherd, G., Boardman, J. & Slade, M. (2008). Making recovery a reality. (2008). London, England: Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.
This policy paper presents some of the key ideas about recovery and examines their implications for the delivery of mental health services.
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust & South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. (2010). Recovery is for all. Hope, agency and opportunity in psychiatry: a position statement by consultant psychiatrists. London, England.
This position statement provides the conceptual and practical framework for psychiatrists to turn the vision of recovery focused mental health services into reality.
Example frameworks, guidelines and tools:
Department of Health. (2013). A National framework for recovery-oriented mental health services: policy and theory. Canberra: Department of Health. Commonwealth of Australia.
This background paper is a summary of the research and policy that underpins Australia’s national framework for recovery-oriented mental health services. It provides an overview and definition of the concepts of recovery and lived experience. It outlines the policy context for a move to recovery-oriented approaches and cites relevant research. It briefly describes the practice domains and key capabilities necessary for recovery-oriented practice and service delivery. It also describes the relationship of the framework to Australia’s National Standards for Mental Health Services 2010.
Department of Health. (2013). A National framework for recovery-oriented mental health services: guide for practitioners and providers. Canberra: Department of Health. Commonwealth of Australia.
This document is a guide for mental health practitioners and services to Australia’s national framework for recovery-oriented mental health services. It provides definitions for the concepts of recovery and lived experience; describes the practice domains and key capabilities necessary for the mental health workforce to function in accordance with recovery-oriented principles; and provides guidance on tailoring recovery-oriented approaches to respond to the diversity of people with mental health issues, to people in different life circumstances and at different ages and stages of life.
Department of Health. (2013). Consumer and carer guide to recovery principles that support recovery-oriented mental health practice. Canberra: Department of Health. Commonwealth of Australia.
The reflective questions in this guide provide consumers and carers with a recovery principles approach to ensure that mental health services facilitate their recovery journey.
Department of Health. (2010). Principles of recovery oriented mental health practice. National Standards for Mental Health Services. Canberra: Department of Health. Commonwealth of Australia.
The purpose of principles of recovery oriented mental health practice is to ensure that mental health services are being delivered in a way that supports the recovery of mental health consumers.
Devon Partnership NHS Trust (2014). Putting recovery at the heart of all we do: a guide to values, principals, practices and standards. England.
This is a short guide detailing the values, principals, practices and standards for mental health services.
Forrest, S. & Mathieson, A. (Eds.). (2011). The 10 essential shared capabilities for mental health practice: learning materials (Scotland). NHS Education for Scotland.
This learning resource focuses upon supporting cultural change in services by promoting rights-based, recovery focused practice. It has been designed to meet the learning needs of a wide range of people with an interest in mental health in Scotland, including mental health professionals, workers, service users, carers and the people who support them. The learning resource is action focused, and the activities that appear throughout each of the modules could play a key part in the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are central to the delivery of rights, recovery and values based mental healthcare and services.
Mental Health Coordinating Council. (2012). MHCC Organisation Builder (MOB) - Policy Resource. Sydney.
This resource has been developed to build and strengthen effective, recovery-oriented service delivery and practice for people with lived experience of mental illness and their support network. The resource contains template-style samples, information brochures, checklists, diagrams and flowcharts which community managed organisations will find useful for adaptation in policy development and review.
Mental Health Coordinating Council. (2013 b).Recovery Orientated Language Guide. Sydney.
The Mental Health Coordinating Council developed the Recovery Oriented Language Guide because language matters in mental health. Words that convey hope and optimism, and that support and promote a culture that supports recovery, need to be used.
Mental Health Coordinating Council. (2015). Recovery Oriented Service Self-Assessment Toolkit (ROSSAT). Sydney.
ROSSAT has been designed to assist organisations and workers to assess their level of recovery oriented service provision, reflect on both individual and organisational practice in relation to recovery oriented service provision, and to identify and work on areas requiring improved practice in the delivery of recovery oriented services.
Perkins, R. (2015). Engaging in co-production and developing team recovery implementation plans. PowerPoint presentation from workshops held in Queensland.
Perkins leads participants to explore and practice evidence-based processes such as co-production and Team Recovery Implementation Plans (TRIP) as tools to guide client-centred, self-directed practice. Perkins explores how services can move from more traditional ‘consumer involvement’ to genuine partnership/co-production in both design and delivery that brings together the professional and lived-experience expert on equal terms.
Repper, J. & Perkins, R. (2013). The Team Recovery Implementation Plan: a framework for creating recovery-focused services.
This paper describes Team Recovery Implementation Plans (TRIP) and its practical use in a variety of settings. Creating more recovery-focused services requires a change in culture and practice at every level of the organisation. In modern mental health services, the basic building block is the multidisciplinary team, whether in a hospital ward or in the community. Supporting recovery through working with the whole team is at the centre of organisational change and a necessary complement to changing the attitudes and behaviour of front-line staff.
Scottish Recovery Network. (2013). Scottish Recovery Indicator. Glasgow, United Kingdom.
The Scottish Recovery Indicator (SRI) is a service development tool that can be used by anyone interested in developing recovery focused services. SRI was developed by the Scottish Recovery Network (SRN) to provide services with a practical tool to review, develop and improve how they are supporting recovery.
Slade, M. (2013). 100 Ways To Support Recovery. A guide for mental health professionals. (2 nd Ed). London: Rethink.
This is a guide for mental health staff, which aims to support the development of a focus on recovery within our services. It provides different ideas for working with service users in a recovery oriented fashion.
Case studies and recovery in context:
NSW Consumer Advisory Group – Mental Health Inc. (2009). Moving Recovery from Policy to Practice in NSW: interview with Helen Glover. Sydney.
In December 2009, NSW Consumer Advisory Group (CAG) hosted a Recovery Forum for over 120 people, which included consumers, carers, service providers, clinicians, academics, researchers, and representatives from NSW Health. The following is an interview held at the beginning of the forum between Helen Glover (Consultant and Trainer in Recovery Oriented Service Provision) and Karen Oakley (Executive Officer, NSW CAG).
Scottish Recovery Network and the Scottish Association for Mental Health. (2015). Sustaining hope: recovery in social care services. Glasgow, United Kingdom.
This project explored the assistance of a group of 14 supported living services to further develop their approach to recovery. These services were already on a journey of change but felt they needed to look at where they were and what needed to happen to ensure that recovery was embedded into everyday practice, and evidenced. One of the findings of the project was that recovery should not be seen as an add on. Rather, it should be embedded into working practices and its underlying principles used as a basis for review and improvement.
Information about social justice frameworks for recovery
Hummelvoll, (J.K.), Karlsson B. & and Borg, M. (2015). Recovery and person-centredness in mental health services: roots of the concepts and implications for practice. International Practice Development Journal 5 (Suppl) [7].
This article discusses the roots and developments of recovery and person-centredness, highlights some key strategies of these practice developments and shows how the concepts and practices can nurture each other.
Morrow, M. & Weisser, J. (2012).Towards a Social Justice Framework of Mental Health Recovery. Studies in Social Justice Volume 6, Issue 1, 27-43, 2012.
This paper sets out the context in which experiences of mental distress occur with an emphasis on the contributions of social and structural factors and then makes a case for the use of intersectionality as an analytic and methodological framework for understanding these factors.
Morrow, M., Jamer, B., & Weisser, J. (n.d.). The Recovery Dialogues: A Critical Exploration of Social Inequities in Mental Health Recovery.
The goal of this research was to facilitate and support the establishment of a collaboration of key experts and stakeholders from the field of mental health including decision makers, service providers, and service users interested in developing new conceptualisations of mental health recovery which are grounded in principles of citizen engagement and that recognise the impact of social and structural inequities on mental health and recovery.
This user-led group is of mental health survivors and supporters who are critical of the 'recovery' model and have developed the ‘Unrecovery Star’ to demonstrate how the concept of ‘recovery’ has been co-opted and colonised from its more radical roots.