New Recovery Practitioners benefit from bespoke training to better meet mental health needs
Twelve Recovery Practitioners, whose role is to enable individuals to improve their personal resilience to in turn self-manage their mental health challenges, have benefitted from bespoke training from Recovery Devon, a community interest company at the forefront of the recovery movement in mental health.
Recovery Devon employs those with lived experience and one of its core aims is to champion the voice of lived experience in the mental health sector, including in the co-production of its training offers.
A recent half-day workshop delivered by Managing Director Hilda Kalap and Community Development Worker Sami Goulding covered the history of the recovery movement, from its roots in human rights and disabilities activism, with an understanding that recovery does not necessarily mean 'getting better' but still being able to live a life full of meaning.
Speaking about the concept of recovery, Kalap said: “At the heart of recovery is that individuals feel they have hope, choice, and opportunity in their lives.” The training also explained the latest research into different types of trauma and the impact of adverse childhood experiences on an individual.
Recovery Practitioners have a broad range of expertise, with backgrounds ranging from health and social care to teaching, counselling, and other mental health support work. They work with people with severe mental illness (SMI) and complex needs, providing 1:1 practical and emotional support via face-to-face, telephone, email, and video conferencing platforms. The approach is solutions-focused, assisting individuals to overcome a range of barriers.
The role includes preparing and co-producing actions plans — such as Wellness Recovery Action Plans — to enable individuals to improve their personal resilience to manage their mental health challenges. Crucially, by taking an holistic approach they can factor in the impact of debt, poor housing, unemployment, homelessness, loneliness, and caring responsibilities.
Ed Foreman, Alliance Locality Manager for Exeter, East and Mid Devon, commented: “It is incredibly important to us that we are drawing on the resources and experience available across the Devon VCSE sector. The chance to experience some training from Recovery Devon was too good to pass up. The manner in which this was delivered was tailored perfectly to our service's needs, and the passion shown by the trainers was there for all to see.”
“The Principles of Recovery are something talked about by many organisations, but are we really aware of them and are they embedded fully in our working practices? I like to think we have taken a huge step towards defining our ways of working for the better and recommend others to do the same.”
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Victoria Burns, Senior Responsible Officer for the Community Mental Health Framework (CMHF) at Devon Partnership NHS Trust, added: “It's brilliant to hear about the success of this training at the Alliance, with whom we work in partnership in the delivery of the CMHF. Recovery Practitioners act as a link to the wider community to ensure people have access to effective local, sustainable support, and therefore play a vital role in the implementation of the Framework.”