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CVAB is committed to the reality of Recovery. We encourage you to look for a Recovery Concept posted each month and enter into the dialog we enjoy around the new theme at each CVAB Community Gathering. Below is the list of concepts we have reviewed so far.
National Consensus Statement on Mental Health Recovery
Mental health recovery is a journey of healing and transformation enabling a person with a mental health problem to live a meaningful life in a community of his or her choice while striving to achieve his or her full potential.
Self-Direction: Consumers lead, control, exercise choice over, and determine their own path of recovery by optimizing autonomy, independence, and control of resources to achieve a self-determined life. By definition, the recovery process must be self-directed by the individual, who defines his or her own life goals and designs a unique path towards those goals.
How are you directing your recovery?
Individualized and Person-Centered: There are multiple pathways to recovery based on an individual’s unique strengths and resiliencies as well as his or her needs, preferences, experiences (including past trauma), and cultural background in all of its diverse representations. Individuals also identify recovery as being an ongoing journey and an end result as well as an overall paradigm for achieving wellness and optimal mental health.
How is your recovery paradigm impacting your journey?
Paradigm: A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality
Empowerment: Consumers have the authority to choose from a range of options and to participate in all decisions—including the allocation of resources—that will affect their lives, and are educated and supported in so doing. They have the ability to join with other consumers to collectively and effectively speak for themselves about their needs, wants, desires, and aspirations. Through empowerment, an individual gains control of his or her own destiny and influences the organizational and societal structures in his or her life.
How are you achieving control of your life?
Holistic: Recovery encompasses an individual’s whole life, including mind, body, spirit, and community. Recovery embraces all aspects of life, including housing, employment, education, mental health and healthcare treatment and services, complementary and naturalistic services, addictions treatment, spirituality, creativity, social networks, community participation, and family supports as determined by the person. Families, providers, organizations, systems, communities, and society play crucial roles in creating and maintaining meaningful opportunities for consumer access to these supports.
How is your recovery involving all aspects of your life?
Non-Linear: Recovery is not a step-by-step process but one based on continual growth, occasional setbacks, and learning from experience. Recovery begins with an initial stage of awareness in which a person recognizes that positive change is possible. This awareness enables the consumer to move on to fully engage in the work of recovery.
What are you doing that confirms for you that you’re engaged in the work of recovery?
Strengths-Based: Recovery focuses on valuing the multiple strengths, capacities, talents, and coping abilities that exist in yourself and others. When you value and build on these strengths, your life begins to take on new meaning. You make new friends, new relationships, and you take on new life roles. Your recovery moves forward with healthy interactions and trust based relationships.
How are your relationships and roles demonstrating your strengths, recovery and understanding of your new meaning?
Peer Support: Mutual support—including the sharing of experiential knowledge and skills and social learning—plays an invaluable role in recovery. Consumers encourage and engage other consumers in recovery and provide each other with a sense of belonging, supportive relationships, valued roles, and community.
Describe how peers are supporting your recovery and you are supporting theirs.
Respect: Accepting and believing in one’s self is vital to the recovery process. Individuals in recovery also benefit from genuine acceptance and appreciation by the community and larger society. Eliminating discrimination and social stigma help to ensure that an individual in recovery will achieve his or her goals.
“Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” Abraham J. Heschel
What are you saying “yes” to?
Responsibility: Each individual has a personal responsibility for his or her own self care and journey through recovery. Making strides toward achieving your goals will require great courage, effort and support. By understanding and giving meaning to your experiences, you can begin to identify coping strategies and healing processes that promote your own wellness.
Hope: Recovery provides a motivating message of a better future: everyone can overcome any obstacle or barrier in their way. HOPE comes from within an individual, but can also come from peers, friends, life partners, family members, children, and providers. Hope is what drives us all to live, grow, and achieve our goals.
How is Hope driving your Recovery?
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