Why the opportunity to develop new skills should be a key component of all recovery focused mental health and disability support programs
Over the past two decades, the concept of recovery has been incorporated into the policies, philosophy and strategic direction of virtually all mental health services throughout Australia. In line with the principles of consumer directed care, it is now widely accepted that people with mental health conditions and disability have the right to define what recovery means to them. And as a result, they should be able to receive treatment and supports that are respectful and accommodating of their personal goals and desires.
But when it comes to the practical delivery of NDIS services—there is a little less agreement on exactly what recovery based mental health and disability supports look like. Each provider has their own unique approach to consumer directed care. And every individual NDIS participant has different expectations and requirements around recovery. However, despite all this variation, we believe that there is one universal element of all high-quality recovery oriented mental health and disability support programs: A focus on building meaningful skills.
To explore why, let's take a closer look at what recovery is.
What is Recovery?
By design, explanations of recovery are always shaped by the individuals and communities that create them. They reflect a combination of the lived experiences of certain groups of people, infused with the core principles of the mental health consumer movement. Seeing as our core business is working with NDIS participants, the definition used in the NDIS Psychosocial Recovery-Oriented Framework is a good place to start in exploring recovery.
The NDIS defines recovery in line with the World Health Organisation’s explanation, which states that:
“The meaning of recovery can be different for each person. For many people, recovery is about regaining control of their identity and life, having hope for their life and living a life that has meaning for them, whether that be through work, relationships, spirituality, community engagement, or some or all of these.” Mind Australia, one of the longest-standing community managed mental health and wellbeing providers in Australia, adds further points about understanding recovery:
The most important thing to understand is that people can recover from a mental health problem and live a productive and fulfilling life
Only the individual can decide what a better life will look like for them
Often, recovery involves choosing to live differently and having power over areas of life that used to seem unmanageable
Recovery is realistic and practical. It’s about identifying and dealing with whatever’s getting in the way of people’s emotional wellbeing
Recovery brings change, and change is challenging; but recovery also brings hope, inspiration and empowerment to people who may almost have forgotten what those things feel like. That helps them to meet any challenge
If we pull out a few of the key themes from the explanations above, the importance of skill building in recovery starts to become clearer.
The Link Between Skill Building and Recovery
Skill building isn’t the only component of mental health recovery. But in our experience as a SIL provider—learning new skills is an essential part of an individual’s recovery journey. Some of the key themes in the definitions above include a focus on people with mental health conditions or disability:
Regaining control of previously unmanageable areas of their life
Engaging in meaningful activities, like work, education and community activities
Building new relationships
Dealing with barriers to emotional wellbeing
Controlling symptoms through mainstream mental health treatment certainly might be one component of achieving some of these goals. Yet we find that alone often won’t lead to a full recovery.
Many of the young men we work with in our SIL program have often missed several key developmental milestones through adolescence and young adulthood, such as finishing their education, learning how to manage money and the basics of cooking and self care.
Some of our residents also lost skills they previously had during an extended period of instability and ill health. For example, young men in our program who had been couch surfing or homeless for years, often initially struggle to maintain their living environment and budget for things like rent and groceries. Therefore, an essential part of the recovery journey for these young men is learning (or re-learning) the skills they need to achieve their recovery goals. Fortunately, supported independent living can offer an ideal environment in which to do this important work.
How We Promote Skill Development in SIL
At Carewise, skill development is a core component of our model of care.
Our goal is to help all of our residents progress to a level of independence and autonomy where they no longer need our support. And the best way we’ve found to achieve that, is through building the necessary skills to achieve their personal version of recovery.
The first step with all of our residents is to rebuild their circle of security and establish a stable home base. People can only learn when they feel safe and secure, so we put a lot of work into this up front. We help our SIL participants get a robust support team in place, including all the formal and informal supports they need to thrive.
We think of our SIL homes as inspired living environments. And once a young man feels comfortable, they have several options within the Carewise program to learn new skills that are aligned with their recovery goals.
Skillwise Our Skillwise program was developed in collaboration with The National Training and Education Centre. We offer it to any of our participants who would like to upskill in seven key pillars covering essential life skills, including:
Health & Wellness
Positive Communication
Relationships & Friendships
Problem Solving
Money & Me
Employability
Cooking & Nutrition
Skillwise sessions are a combination of structured sessions and individual tuition, with residents free to attend as many or as few courses as they like
To give you an idea of what a course might involve, our lessons on cooking and nutrition include a set program covering the basics in these areas. Then, group members and the support worker leading the program will decide on practical cooking tasks to complete, based on the preferences and any specific health needs of participants taking the course.
This might include learning how to make a healthy breakfast. Making good choices for weight loss. Or learning budget friendly recipes that are also high in nutrition.
Workwise
Our team has a combined 20 years of experience working with young men with mental health conditions and disability. And a common goal we’ve all noticed throughout that time, is a desire for participants to get into paid employment.
Some of our residents have never worked before. While others have some experience, but often couldn’t keep working when they became unwell. Whatever their background, with our Workwise program, we help young men discover the benefits of paid work and build employment skills.
Any of our SIL residents can join a Workwise property maintenance crew and learn hands-on skills from expert tradespeople. They gain valuable skills and experience in areas like landscaping, mowing and painting, while also getting paid for their work.
Workwise also covers other essential work related skills, like:
How to set employment goals
Resume writing and interview skills
Workplace behaviour and safety
How to travel independently and show up on time
Resilience and problem solving
As with Skillwise, there is the option for individualised support through Workwise.
The hands-on experience is limited to property maintenance. But if one of our residents wants to find work in a customer service role, for example, our team can help them with specific tasks related to this goal, like writing a resume, finding relevant courses and providing a work reference.
Social and Spiritual Activities In our experience, while young men don’t always identify it right away, improving relationships is something most people want to work on, so we provide numerous opportunities for our SIL residents to build skills in this area.
At Carewise, we have social hubs that facilitate interaction and connection between our residents, support team, and the other important people in our participants’ lives. These hubs are a great place for young men to ease into becoming more socially active and practice skills they’ve been working on in our Skillwise groups.
To provide a variety of avenues for social skills development, we also have periodical camping trips and an exercise and nature exploration program. These activities are available to any resident who wishes to access them and can be tailored to specific needs or interests.
Finally, to help young men build the necessary skills for a healthy and positive relationship with themsleves, we recently gained a licence to offer the non-religious, mindfulness based Prem Rawat Peace Education Program, and offer it in all of our SIL homes. This world renowned program covers theoretical and practical skills covering ten themes: Peace, Appreciation, Inner Strength, Self-awareness, Clarity, Understanding, Dignity, Choice, Hope and contentment.
Dedicated 1:1 Support In addition to our more structured skills based programs, every Carewise resident receives ongoing dedicated individual support from our tight-knit team of skilled support workers.
How each resident chooses to utilise this is up to them. Some have specific goals that fall outside of our regular programs, like a hobby, special interest, or educational program they are working on. While others enjoy using their 1:1 time to build upon skills they’ve been introduced to in our groups.
Our unique 7 day on, 7 day off model of care, means that we can support our SIL residents to make rapid progress in developing new skills.
Often, a support worker and resident will set a specific goal at the beginning of a week, such as cooking dinner every night, learning to catch the bus, or showing up for the Workwise crew every day.
While we definitely don’t have a 100% success rate, we are constantly surprised at just how much our young men can achieve over the course of seven days, when they set a meaningful goal, then work hard to achieve it with consistent support.
Recovery Is About Skills, Independence & Autonomy After working with countless young men through their recovery journeys, we have learned that skills, independence and autonomy are central to recovery for people with mental health conditions and disability.
The goals and plan will look different for every person. Recovery is and always will be unique to the individual.
For some of our residents, their goal is to live completely independently, controlling all of their affairs, with minimal to no ongoing supports. While for others, independence and autonomy are about identifying the areas of life they can and want to be responsible for, then learning the relevant skills to take control of these.
The big lesson for us, has been to take the utmost care to give our residents ample opportunity to define their own versions of independence and autonomy.
Once we’ve done this, our role is clear—come up with a plan to support the participant to learn the skills they need to turn their dream of recovery into a reality.
To learn more about the Carewise approach to recovery through supported independent living (SIL), please contact us today.
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