WHAT IS A RECOVERY COLLEGE?
Recovery Colleges deliver comprehensive, peer-led education and training programmes within mental health services. They should be run like any other college, providing education as a route to Recovery, not as a form of therapy. Courses are co-devised and co- delivered by people with lived experience of mental illness and by mental health professionals. Their services should be offered to service users, professionals and families alike, with people choosing the courses they would like to attend from a prospectus. As well as offering education alongside treatment for individuals they also change the relationship between services and those who use them; they identify new peer workers to join the workforce; and they can replace some existing services.
https://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/2012/09/1-recovery-colleges
Pioneering Recovery College to launch in Bradford. Left to right: Healthy Lifestyle Solutions CIC chief officer Julie Wakefield and director James Blezard; ward officer for Wyke and Tong wards, Rada Mijailovic; Dr Angela Moulson clinical lead for mental health with the NHS - may 2019
Community Partnership 9 invested in the idea of the Recovery College model to take place as a pilot in the BD4 community. Headed up by Healthy Lifestyle Solutions CIC the Recovery College quickly outgrew its pilot premises (a single room within the Tong Medical Centre) and found alternative premises close by allowing for increased levels of activity.
In 2022, Restore Recovery College was awarded funding support to bring about further sustainability from the Community Mental Health Transformation funding made available by the local ICB.
