The World Health Organization, along with the Mental Health Commission of Canada, has endorsed the transformation of mental health care based on a recovery model that promotes consumer empowerment and involvement in service delivery

Canada’s Mental Health Commission says that “the concept of recovery is built on the principles of hope, empowerment, self-determination and responsibility. In a recovery-oriented system, people who experience mental health problems and illnesses are treated with dignity and respect. To the greatest extent possible, they control and maintain responsibility for their mental health and well-being, and they make their own choices about which services, treatments and supports may be best for them, informed by the advice of professionals, as well as family and peers.” [source PDF document]

Recovery is defined as a process in which people living with mental health problems and illnesses are actively engaged in their own journey of well-being. Recovery journeys build on individual, family, cultural, and community strengths, and can be supported by many types of services, supports, and treatments. The goal is to enable people to exercise all their rights as citizens and to enjoy a meaningful life in their community while striving to achieve their full potential. — Mental Health Commission of Canada

But changing institutional culture to promote and include meaningful dialogue between those “being treated” and those “providing treatment” is challenging. Some recent research has brought together service recipients and service providers in a project that looked at how treatment dialogue might be implemented.

Ronna Schwartz was lead researcher for a study looking at how dialogue between mental health consumers and care providers can promote recovery-oriented care in an institutional setting. The 2013 study is called Mental Health Consumers and Providers Dialogue in an Institutional Setting: A Participatory Approach to Promoting Recovery-Oriented Care [opens to PDF].

The project revealed both the challenges with situating research within an institution (hierarchy of knowledge, power, and vulnerability) and face-to-face dialogue, as well as positive changes in professional attitudes and consumer empowerment, as providers and patients came to understand what was at stake for each other. The project underscored the need for provider–consumer dialogue as a process to explore tensions and values in promoting recovery-oriented care. — A Participatory Approach to Promoting Recovery-Oriented Care [opens to PDF]

We speak with Ronna Schwartz, a coordinator in the early psychosis and schizophrenia spectrum program at McGill University Health Centre, in a People First Radio interview first broadcast in March 2014.

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— People First Radio (@peoplefirstrad) March 20, 2015