Welcome...

We invite you to attend the Refocus on Recovery 2010 conference,
to be held in London on 20 - 22 September 2010. The conference is
organised by the Section for Recovery at the Institute of Psychiatry
and by Rethink. It will be of interest to anyone who wants mental health services to support recovery from mental illness, including mental health service users, carers, mental health workers, managers and mental health system leaders. The conference aims are:

1. Increase the visibility of recovery research, including both the best international work and national and local studies
2. Identify and explore concerns about the meaning, relevance and practice implications of ‘recovery’
3. Consolidate research collaborations and give an opportunity to develop new networks

The conference will showcase best-in-field recovery-related research, and will provide an opportunity to develop new alliances with recovery champions. Several international key-note speakers will be describing recovery-related innovations, and national research and service developments will be presented. In addition, masterclasses will be offered by international experts on the morning of 20 September, before the conference starts.

The four themes of the conference will be:

Theme 1: Mental health services and recovery
How can mental health services support people's journey of recovery from, and with, mental illness? What interventions promote recovery outcomes such as hope, empowerment and gaining control over one’s life? How can the success of mental health services at supporting recovery be evaluated, when recovery is an individual journey?

Theme 2: What’s wrong with recovery?
What is recovery, and why are mental health services being seen as co-opting the idea? Does recovery work for everyone? Does an individual-level understanding of recovery conceal issues of power imbalance, cultural practices and social inequality?

Theme 3: Partnership working
How can the expertise of lived experience and the expertise of professional training work together to best support recovery? What professional values and service user expectations need to change? How can a person’s recovery best be supported through collaboration with and between health, social and voluntary sector services?

Theme 4: Promoting well-being
How can people experiencing mental illness increase their well-being? Can personal experience of mental illness be a life-enriching experience? What can, and can't, mental health services contribute? Does the personalisation agenda offer new opportunities for recovery?

We very much hope you will be able to attend.

 

Warm regards

Mike Slade                            John Larsen
Institute of Psychiatry            Rethink