Leadership coaching transforming mental health systems from the inside out: The Collaborative Recovery Model as person-centred strengths based coaching psychology

Abstract

Mental health service provision is being transformed by a call for ‘recovery oriented care’. Rather than the traditional medical meaning of cure, the term ‘recovery’ refers to the personal and transformational process of patients living with mental illness, moving towards a preferred identity and a life of meaning – a framework where growth is possible, and the fixed mindsets around diagnoses such as schizophrenia are challenged. At an organisational level, however, organisations and their service providers have typically operated on a framework that is fixed in terms of the potentialities of the mental health patients. This paper describes the ongoing transformation of a large tertiary inpatient mental health unit in Ontario, Canada, through a parallel staff and patient implementation of a person-centred strengths based coaching framework, known as the Collaborative Recovery Model (CRM). Consistent with developments in positive psychology, the model focuses on strengths and values, goals and actions, within a coaching framework, with an emphasis on the alliance between staff and patient, and the growth potential of the patient. By using the principles of coaching psychology, mental health staff members are leading change in the organisation by personal use of the principles and practices that they are also using to coach patients. The leadership and organisational change challenges are described and future directions are discussed.