Recovery is about a person’s right to build a meaningful and satisfying life, with or without their mental health symptoms, as defined by them. One service user described it as: “Recovery is building a life worth living.”

For staff, it’s a movement away from an expert/patient role, into a coaching or partnering role where service users are encouraged to self-manage and the focus of their recovery is based on health, strengths and wellness, rather than pathology, illness and symptoms.

Here at West London Mental Health Trust, we’re proud to be part of the national recovery initiative called the ImROC Project. ImROC stands for Implementing Recovery for Organisational Change and over the next two years, we will receive expert advice and have the opportunity to work with other Trusts to share good practice, helping us to deliver recovery focussed care throughout all our services.

As part of our commitment to recovery, we are in the process of developing a Recovery Hub. The Hub will be a centrally located service that will offer a range of programmes aimed at supporting service users, staff and carers. Some of the services that are hoped to be offered include a library, peer support workers with lived experience and a recovery education programme which will deliver a range of courses both within the centre and in venues across our boroughs. The peer support and education programmes have already begun, and we look forward to seeing the Hub grow and expand as it adds new courses and services over time.

For more information about the recovery approach, read our Recovery Strategy. The Centre for Mental Health has also produced a comprehensive, yet easy to understand paper about the recovery approach, called Making recovery a reality.