Across UK mental health services, most NHS Trusts and voluntary sector services are actively recruiting people with personal experience of mental health challenges to newly created ‘Peer Support Worker’ positions. A national competency framework for peer workers has been agreed (Health Education England, 2020) and accompanying training programmes have been established (see for example, Bradstreet, 2006; Repper et al, 2013 a & b).

If services are to become more recovery focused then recovery principles and values must permeate every facet of organisations (Shepherd et al 2009). Creating recovery focused services is not about adding a new intervention or service to our repertoire but about fundamental cultural change.

Whilst most peer support practice, research and publications have focused on peer support by and for people with mental health problems, informal support between people who have shared experiences has always occurred across the whole spectrum of health and social care settings.

This is the second paper in the ‘Sharing our Experience’ series that is designed to explore different facets of Recovery Colleges and how the principles on which they are based (see Perkins et al, 2018) are realised in different contexts. In the first paper in this ‘Sharing Our Experience’ series, colleagues from the Recovery College within the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Canada provided insights into the creative and thoughtful ways in which the core principles of a Recovery College were realised in practice in a largely clinical mental health service as a core part of a broader ‘Recovery Action Plan’.

Since the idea of ‘Recovery Colleges’ was first introduced in 2006/7, they have been taken up widely both across the UK and in many other parts of the world. Increasingly Recovery Colleges form a core part of recovery focused mental health services: they both embody the recovery-focused transformation of services and drive broader organisational change across services.

Peer support is more than the employment of people with lived experience in paid support roles; it is the employment of people who share some of the experiences of people using services (peers) specifically to draw on these shared experiences and ways they have found to live well (their experiential knowledge) – to provide support based on shared understandings, mutual problem solving, a belief in the possibility of recovery, and time together to find hope, solutions and connections.

The Live Well model brings together best evidence for community development, social prescribing, health coaching, health education and volunteering – all linked and developed through a core coproduction forum. This paper describes the development and outcomes of the pioneer Live Well service – Let’s Live Well in Rushcliffe (LLWiR).

Within the current climate of resource restrictions and pressured workloads, recovery colleges demonstrate the value of coproduction and self-management. Recovery Colleges 10 Years On reminds us of the pace of change, impact and ever growing evidence base for recovery colleges within the UK and internationally.

The evidence base for Recovery offers achievable answers to the resource restrictions and system pressures that mental health providers, commissioners and others in the system are facing on a daily basis. Co-authored by Institute of Mental Health, London School of Economics and ImROC, Recovery: the business case is an outcome analysis and economic review of Recovery.

Coproduction is a term we frequently hear and use. If we stop to examine the way we work in every interaction and every conversation, do we truly recognise everyone’s assets, engage in mutually respectful and beneficial relationships and actively endeavour to reduce traditional power imbalances?

Receiving a diagnosis of dementia can have an overwhelming impact. The paper sets out a framework for understanding the personal journey of recovery with a diagnosis of dementia; from identity, impact of diagnosis, making sense of their experience to coping strategies and ways to live well.

This briefing paper examines the role of advocacy in empowering people to express their views and preferences and also their understanding of the meaning of mental distress. It provides an overview of the different types of advocacy, and the situations in which advocacy might be particularly important. It also addresses some of the misunderstandings surrounding the concept of advocacy.

This paper finds that recovery for people in forensic services is in most ways the same as for those using other mental health services. Hope for the future, control over your life and illness, andopportunity for a life beyond illness are key for both. But people with offending histories also have to come to terms with what they have done. Forensic services can help them to recover by supporting them to ‘come to terms with themselves’.

This paper argues that risk and safety are rightly major concerns in mental health care but that traditional methods of assessing risk have stood in the way of helping people to recover their lives. It argues that jointly produced ‘safety plans’ can be more effective ways of managing risk as well as enabling people to get on with their lives.

The development of mental health services which will support the recovery of those using them, their families, friends and carers is now a central theme in national and international policy (DH/HMG, 2011; Slade, 2009). In order to support these developments we need clear, empiricallyinformed statements of what constitutes high-quality services and how these will lead to key recovery outcomes. This is what the present paper aims to do.

Peer support is based on offering and receiving help based on shared understanding, respect and mutual empowerment. Whether paid or voluntary and working in statutory, private or independent services, peer support workershave a valuable role to play. The introduction of people with lived experience of mental health problems into the mental health workforce is a hugely significant step in a service becoming more recovery focused. This paper sets out four phases for an organisation looking to introduce peer worker posts: preparation; recruitment; employment; and ongoing development.

This paper shows how Team Recovery Implementation Plans, known as TRIPs, support a whole team in becoming more recovery-focused, but should not be seen as a management device. A TRIP aims to empower teams to translate recovery ideas into practice and to utilise the skills and resources of everyone at the front line, both those providing and those using services, to develop innovative ways of promoting recovery and recovery environments.

Using peer support workers to support the recovery of people with mental illness can add significant value to mental health services, sometimes at no extra cost, according to new research published today. This paper sets out the spectrum for peer support in mental health services, which can range from naturally occurring through to formal employment of people with lived experience of mental ill-health.

This Tool was created by people who have firsthand experience with acute care wards - whether as staff, patients, or supporting loved ones. It’s based on wellness recovery action planning and aims to provide a practical tool for those working on or staying in these wards. The main goal is to encourage conversations about Recovery. Instead of just focusing on diagnoses and medications, the approach focuses on understanding each person as an individual. It’s about learning who they are, their goals, and what matters to them.

This briefing paper examines what Recovery means for the families and friends of people with mental health conditions. It suggests ways in which these informal carers can support Recovery and looks at how mental health services can give the best possible help to do this. It also provides information about key resources, including the Triangle of Care and a Wellbeing Recovery Plan for families and friends.