Becoming a recovery - oriented practitioner †

The proposal that mental health workers should explicitly train to become ‘recovery-oriented practitioners’ has been gathering pace for over a decade (O’Hagan 2001; National Institute for Mental Health in England 2004a). It is now supported by professional endorsements (Care Services Improvement Partnership 2007), national policy (Department of Health 2011), advocacy from non-statutory organisations (Mind 2008; Rethink 2009), the views of lobbying alliances (Future Vision Coalition 2009), independent reviews (Rethink 2012) and the strategic commitments of a growing number of National Health Service (NHS) trusts. In our first article (Roberts 2013) we described the growth of understanding and commitment to the principles of recovery in mental health services and will now look at how these might be translated into practice. There is no overarching blueprint for recovery-oriented practice, but there is a developing consensus on the changes needed for mental health services and practitioners to be more supportive of people in their recovery.