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Introduction
This is a case study of the partnership over the past nine months between voluntary sector organisation Activ8 and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SPFT) developing a Recovery College pilot in Hastings. We introduce literature on Recovery Colleges and partnership working; outline the co-production process of developing the Recovery College and our learning through reflection, review and evaluation. We conclude with a summary of our learning and implications so far.
Why develop a recovery college
This is the best thing to happen in mental health. It puts a person's recovery back in the service user's control. Recovery College can offer a new strand to what is available on mental health to assist people with hope, choice and learning opportunities to develop self-help and self-management skills and explore vocational and personal development (Hastings peer worker).
Recovery Colleges use an educational approach to enable people to realise their aspirations; take control of their recovery and improve their wellbeing. They combine the strengths of bringing together expertise by lived experience and expertise by professional training. All courses are mental health and recovery related; co-produced and co-facilitated by peer and professional trainers; and open to people who use services, their relatives, friends and carers and NHS and voluntary sector staff. People choose what courses they want from a prospectus. They meet with tutors to register and develop individual learning plans. After attending a course they obtain a certificate and, where appropriate, academic credits. They were first developed in the USA and over the past few years have been developing in the UK. Recovery Colleges are well described in [13] Perkins et al. (2012).
Recovery College courses seem well received. Nottingham Recovery College doubled the number of courses they were offering in the second term and regularly fill all 100+ courses ([14] Repper et al. , 2011). South West London and St Georges found that, after attending, students felt more hopeful about the future; more able to achieve their goals; had their own recovery plans; had more friendships and work opportunities; and used mental health services less ([15] Rinaldi and Wybourn, 2011). These findings are based on initial audits and there is a need for more robust research.
The value of peer support has already been well documented. Peers...