Person-Centered Recovery Planner for Adults with Serious Mental Illness

“Both timely and critical for recovery-oriented practice, this book provides practitioners with the focused, essential knowledge and skills to be truly person-centered and recovery-oriented when supporting an individual’s recovery journey. Dulmus and Nisbet have provided the field with an overdue practical resource. Making the recovery planner’s best practice individual recovery plan format available on Website is brilliant, and every agency will want to incorporate it into its EMR.”

—Linda Rosenberg, President/CEO
National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, Washington, D.C.

“This is a practical and useful tool for case managers and community support workers who are assisting people with serious mental illness toward recovery. Working in a person-centered fashion is what our consumers want and expect, but to date, there have been few published tools with practical value for frontline staff. This resource is timely and relevant.”

—Michael F. Hogan, PhD
Hogan Health Solutions, Delmar, New York; former NYS Commissioner of Mental Health
and Chair of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2002–2003

Proven guidance for creating effective person-centered plans that facilitate the recovery process for individuals with serious mental illness

Recent national and international mental health policy is promoting service delivery models that incorporate person-centered and recovery-oriented approaches, in which individuals are in the lead role, defining their own goals for their individualized recovery plans. Person-Centered Recovery Planner for Adults with Serious Mental Illness provides mental health practitioners with a useful resource to implement person-centered planning within a recovery framework when working with individuals with a serious mental illness.

Providing a succinct overview of the historical roots, philosophy, and practice of person-centered recovery, Person-Centered Recovery Planner for Adults with Serious Mental Illness is organized around the three stages of recovery—Beginnings, Moving Forward, and Leaving Your Practitioner Behind—yet still allows both the individual and practitioner to revisit any of the three stages during the ebb and flow of an individual’s recovery journey.

Sample recovery plans are included, covering the individual’s status, personal priorities, short-term objectives, and recovery steps, and are organized around common recovery goals including:

• Self-advocacy
• Family relationships
• Health and wellness
• Community involvement
• Stress management
• Relapse prevention
• Personal crisis planning
• Transportation
• Social relationships
• Meaningful activities
• Life skills

A companion Website provides all of the plans found in the book in an easily customizable word-processing format. Person-Centered Recovery Planner for Adults with Serious Mental Illness assists practitioners in becoming effective person-centered facilitators and advocates for recovery that meaningfully supports individuals in achieving their hopes and dreams.

Keywords: Catherine Dulmus, Bruce Nisbet, person-centered recovery, serious and persistent mental illness, personal recovery and mental illness, recovery in mental illness, recovery-oriented practice