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SAMHSA |
Date: |
February
16 , 2006 |
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Media Contact: |
SAMHSA
Press |
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Telephone: |
240-276-2130
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SAMHSA
Issues Consensus Statement on Mental Health Recovery
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The Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration today unveiled a consensus statement
outlining principles necessary to achieve mental health recovery. The
consensus statement was developed through deliberations by over 110 expert
panelists representing mental health consumers, families, providers,
advocates, researchers, managed care organizations, state and local public
officials and others. “Recovery must be the
common, recognized outcome of the services we support,” SAMHSA Administrator
Charles Curie said. “This consensus statement on mental health recovery
provides essential guidance that helps us move towards operationalizing
recovery from a public policy and public financing standpoint. Individuals,
families, communities, providers, organizations, and systems can use these
principles to build resilience and facilitate recovery.” The 10 Fundamental
Components of Recovery include: • 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. • 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. • 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. • 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 (such as recreational
services, libraries, museums, etc.), 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. • 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. • Strengths-Based:
Recovery focuses on valuing and building on the multiple capacities,
resiliencies, talents, coping abilities, and inherent worth of individuals.
By building on these strengths, consumers leave stymied life roles behind and
engage in new life roles (e.g., partner, caregiver, friend, student,
employee). The process of recovery moves forward through interaction with
others in supportive, trust-based relationships. • 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. • Respect:
Community, systems, and societal acceptance and appreciation of consumers
—including protecting their rights and eliminating discrimination and
stigma—are crucial in achieving recovery. Self-acceptance and regaining
belief in one’s self are particularly vital. Respect ensures the inclusion
and full participation of consumers in all aspects of their lives. • Responsibility:
Consumers have a personal responsibility for their own self-care and journeys
of recovery. Taking steps towards their goals may require great courage.
Consumers must strive to understand and give meaning to their experiences and
identify coping strategies and healing processes to promote their own
wellness. Hope: Recovery provides the essential
and motivating message of a better future— that people can and do overcome
the barriers and obstacles that confront them. Hope is internalized; but can
be fostered by peers, families, friends, providers, and others. Hope is the
catalyst of the recovery process. The National Consensus
Statement on Mental Health Recovery is available at SAMHSA’s National Mental
Health Information Center at http://www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/sma05-4129/
or 1-800-789-2647. |
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SAMHSA, is a public
health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency
is responsible for improving the accountability, capacity and effectiveness
of the nation’s substance abuse prevention, addictions, treatment, and mental
health services delivery system. |
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