The Recovery model has revolutionised mental health care by placing the person at the centre of their own recovery process. Unlike other more traditional approaches , this model promotes the active participation of the user, empowering them to decide about their wellbeing and future, while fostering a network of both professional and community support. In the San Benito Menni Mental Health Network, in the Province of Latin America, this approach has brought about significant changes, fostering autonomy, co-responsibility and hope in users, who now see beyond their diagnoses and symptoms. Francisca Díaz, psychologist and care coordinator at the San Benito Menni Mental Health Network in Santiago, tells us more about this innovative model.
Could you briefly explain what the Recovery model is and how it differs from other approaches in mental health?
Recovery is a model of organisation of mental health care that manages to create the conditions and relationships between people that will allow those who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder to achieve the experience of recovery, i.e. to recover a meaningful role despite the diagnosis and symptoms, which places the user at the centre of the interventions. It differs from other models in that the power is returned to the user, other models see the person as passive, inexperienced and not as an expert by experience, Recovery also questions the practices of the health system where we decide for them and seeks to create recovery experiences, the user decides if he is recovered not the health team, promotes an effective (and collaborative) participation of their recovery plan, uses hope and motivation as a driver of change.
In your experience, how has the recovery model contributed to improving the quality of life of the people who are part of the San Benito Menni Mental Health Network?
In the mental health network in Chile, it has fostered relationships based on respect, increased the language of proposals and hope, we talk about dreams and that has spread a good spirit to face difficulties, it has also allowed us to question practices that infantilise users to make way for co-responsibility, participation and listening to what users want, which is often not what we think is best for them. We are making progress in activities that encourage autonomy and individuality and the enjoyment of the ability to choose within the restrictions of sheltered housing.
Community work is a fundamental part of the recovery process for patients. How is this approach implemented in the recovery model you practice?
The possibility of having a day centre with a recovery approach has put the recovery of social roles, being a neighbour, being a consumer, being a visitor to the city, as a central activity. This year we started an inclusive financial education programme that has made it easier for people to go out into the neighbourhood to shop, to choose their personal belongings as they wish, to generate activities financed among themselves, to celebrate and to regain control of their money.
What are the main challenges you face in applying the recovery model in community care?
It forces us all the time to question the practices of participation, of how much we put ourselves at the service of others, to make more effort to generate experiences so that they and we ourselves can once again believe that there is a place for everyone in this life. The great challenge is to involve the community in the collective responsibility to include and overcome exclusion.
How is the hospitaller charism, which promotes close and compassionate care, integrated into the recovery model? Do you think there is a synergy between the two?
Recovery is described in the care model as a dynamic model, so it supports the horizontal, friendly and affectionate care that we seek to provide in our network, it connects with hospital values in a fluid way, because it humanises the care processes and recovers the protagonism of the users in their recovery.
Could you share a concrete example of how the community approach of the recovery model has transformed the life of one of the patients under your care?
LC, she is a client who came from a psychiatric clinic where she received a lot of mistreatment two years ago, she came to a sheltered residence and we offered her a healthy and respectful bond, very hopeful about her skills and talents so we managed to change her from a residence to the sheltered home, we believed in her that she could be in an environment with less supervision, with more freedom and autonomy, Then we offered her to be part of an expert peer certification, where her mission is to be a co-facilitator with members of the primary health team to do talks about stigma, she accompanied me in talks for university students about the expert peer experience, today she got a job, after years of social exclusion, she was baptised and it was a celebration of the whole network. Her dream of recovery is to keep her job and live on her own. Today she feels recovered.
The recovery model emphasises building support networks beyond health professionals. What role do families and communities play in the success of this model? working with families is a challenge, the families that are present are available to reflect on Recovery, but most do not have a family and the network seeks to contain this absence with presence and this new hopeful language. I believe that the institutions and the neighbourhood community have shown sensitivity to social inclusion and we notice it when we ask them for help to promote autonomy in everyday issues: the fair, the mass, the school, the neighbours. The family and community are invited to be part of the recovery.
Spirituality is an important component of the Hospitaller Sisters’ charism. How is the spiritual dimension addressed in the context of the recovery model?
The Recovery principle of hope I think is the meeting point with the Hospitaller charism, because it makes it easier to connect with personal and collective purpose, to have faith that there is something more, that we can ask for help to achieve what we want. The story of the founding sisters is super inspiring to believe in our dreams and if we do it with others, it is a lighter path.
Finally, looking to the future, what innovations or improvements do you think could be incorporated into the recovery model in the San Benito Menni Mental Health Network?
To continue improving community care? today we are improving training in the care and recovery model, reflecting and changing practices, the users, the community of sisters and the team of professionals are aligning themselves, but the challenge is the caregivers, that they can find meaning in their daily work, that their way of relating to the users is part of the recovery experience.