The final report of The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health—Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America provided six goals to transform the nation’s mental health system with an overall goal of recovery and a vision to improve the quality of mental health services and access to care. According to the Commission, successful transformation of the mental health system rests on two principles:
-
Services and treatment must be consumer and family centered giving consumers real choices about their providers and treatment options
-
Care focused on facilitating recovery, building resilience and not just managing symptoms
APNA is one of five national participants in a SAMHSA initiative to transform the concepts of recovery from a set of beliefs to recovery-oriented practices. As part of this five-year project, psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and peer specialists will research current activities in recovery-oriented care and develop strategies on how best to implement recovery components into mental health provider education and practice. APNA is collaborating with consumers and psychiatric mental health nursing leaders to promote recovery and to develop curriculum and training materials to increase nursing knowledge of recovery-oriented care and how it translates into nursing practice.
Recovery to Practice Joint Resolution
At the end of the first year of the initiative, the Recovery to Practice Task Force worked with other stakeholders to create a joint statement that emphasizes our commitment to shifting the paradigm towards the implementation of recovery-oriented practice. Read the Joint Statement
Situational Analysis
The Situational Analysis summarizes the first year’s efforts of the APNA RTP project and recommends a plan for developing its curriculum. An Executive Summary of APNA's Situational Analysis was featured in the July 7th, 2011 issue of SAMHSA's Recovery to Practice Weekly Highlights newsletter.
Summary:
During the first year of the project, team members assessed data collected through chapter discussions with a national sample of psychiatric–mental health care–practicing nurses, nursing educators and administrators, and consumers, as well as by interviewing key informants. In addition, a literature review found that while the nursing literature contains little data on recovery, all 10 components of recovery are embedded in nursing theory, research, and practice - particularly in psychiatric–mental health nursing.
Based upon this data collection and literature review, the project team identified the following needs:
-
Integrated nursing education and training in recovery
-
Peer recovery champions
-
Recovery experts
-
Consistency in organizational systems and in the mental health care system
Within the next 2 years, the RTP nursing curriculum and training manual will be developed, with the continued collaboration of nurses, consumers, and other partners. Field testing will involve a pilot group of practicing nurses from selected inpatient settings, beginning in year 3. Full implementation and marketing will occur in the final 2 years. Moreover, the 2012 revision of APNA’s Scope & Standards of Psychiatric–Mental Health Nursing Practice is expected to reflect that mental health recovery is fundamental to our practice.
Read the full Executive Summary Situational Analysis
APNA Recovery to Practice Task Force Goals for Year 1
-
Determine the extent of the use of recovery principles in PMH nursing practice and education.
-
Identify the barriers in implementing recovery-oriented practices and education/training.
-
Specify the opportunities in practice and education that support the shift from an illness-centered paradigm to a person-centered approach.
-
Identify learning needs and strategies that will guide the development of curricular materials.
-
Review other public domain curricula focused on recovery-oriented workforce development such as developed by the National Association of Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) and Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE).
-
Develop a plan for curriculum development for Years 02 and 03.
Click here for a list of task force members.
Recovery Resources.
Learn more in Overcoming Stigma, the April 2011 cover story about APNA's work on the project in ANA's official publication The American Nurse.
Want to get involved?
Contact Us
