Transforming Systems of Care: The American Association of Community Psychiatrists Guidelines for Recovery Oriented Services

Abstract

Thinking about recovery has grown significantly over the last 70 years, and particularly in the past fifteen. Promotion of recovery has recently been recognized as an organizing principle for the transformation of behavioral health services. Recovery is a personal process of growth and change which typically embraces hope, autonomy and affiliation as elements of establishing satisfying and productive lives in spite of disabling conditions or experiences. Recovery oriented services replace paternalistic, illness oriented perspectives with collaborative, autonomy enhancing approaches and represent a major cultural shift in service delivery. Recovery oriented services replace the myth of chronicity and dependence with a message of individualism, empowerment and choice in the context of collaborative relationships with service providers. The American Association of Community Psychiatrists has developed Guidelines for Recovery Oriented Services to facilitate the transformation of services to this new paradigm. The guidelines are divided into three domains: administration, treatment, and supports, each consisting of several elements for which recovery enhancing characteristics are defined. Several example indicators are also provided for each element. This paper presents these guidelines and discusses their application.

Patients’ subjective perspective on recovery orientation on an acute psychiatric unit

“…The training concerned general and inspirational, rather than specific or practical issues (17). The structural alterations and topics of the staff training were compiled on the basis of practice guidelines for recovery-orientation (18). The agenda comprised conceptual aspects of recovery (dimensions of recovery in general (clinical, personal, social, etc.…”

Mixing Oil and Water: Developing Integrated Treatment for People with the Co-Occurring Disorders of Mental Illness and Addiction

“…To start this process, I recommend that clinicians discard the paternalistic attitudes endemic in mental health treatment (e.g., Angell, 2006;Sowers, 2005;Lefley, 1998). I also recommend that the punitive approach also referred to as the conformational approach that has been one of the distinguishing characteristics of substance abuse treatment be discarded as brutish because it does not meet the standards that define best practices (e.g., Quinn, BodenhamerDavis, & Koch, 2004;Dongier, 2005).…”

Substance Abuse Treatment Utilizing Medication Assisted Treatment as HIV Prevention

“…MAT is a recovery oriented system of care when integrated with other medical, social and rehabilitative services in support of the individual's and family's long term efforts to reclaim full and meaningful lives in the community. Important in recovery is the provision of comprehensive services in the context of MAT but also a supportive, enabling environment that fosters individual responsibility over one's health and empowerment to change to a healthy lifestyle (Sowers, 2005). MAT, as a recovery orientated system of care, has four phases as shown in Table 4, along with a set of recovery oriented goals, strategies, and services (White & Mojer-Torres, 2010).…”