Collaborative Recovery Model

Abstract

Traditional mental health care emphasises living with fewer symptoms; mental health recovery may be seen as living well with illness and wellbeing as simply living well. Within this spectrum of aims, this chapter describes the evolution of the Collaborative Recovery Model (CRM) from its origins around the year 1998 until now. The CRM is a conceptual model and training/coaching resource designed to support (a) mental health service provision to become more recovery-oriented and (b) mental health organisational development consistent with mental health recovery values. Th rough training and coaching, the CRM assists mental health staff and consumers to emphasise hope for recovery, personal meaning and growth in the lives of both people living with mental illness and the staff of the services. Evaluation of this program has been supported by National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council funding. To maximise quality distribution and sustainability, Neami National, a nongovernmental mental organisation in Australia, was granted a ten-year exclusive license to use the IP from the CRM suite of programs in order to provide training services to other agencies in Australia. Since the license was granted, Neami National has provided training to over 700 practitioners in Australia, on top of the previous 2000 practitioners trained by the University of Wollongong in Australia, China and Canada. CRM involves two guiding principles and four components. The first guiding principle, 'recovery as an individual process', is underpinned by a model of psychological recovery. In the following chapter psychological recovery is described and contextualised in relation to established theories of wellbeing. The overall CRM is then described, with reference to both the staff training/coaching version referred to as Coach and the assisted peer support version referred to as Flourish. The chapter concludes with reflections upon the challenges of implementation and organisational change within mental health services.