Refocus on Recovery Conference Archive

Refocus on Recovery 2025 (4-5 September, Nottingham)

Over 200 attendees from 21 countries, with more than 160 people joining us in person.

Download the 2025 conference programme

Download the 2025 conference report

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Day 1 – morning 

Welcome address – Vanessa Pinfold & Julie Repper

Keynote 1: Refocusing on Recovery: reclaiming purpose and possibility – Claudia Sartor

Measuring personal recovery in mental health services: Opportunities and challenges – Stine Bjerrum Møller

Recovery College Panel talks:

Evaluating the impact of Recovery College Bern on health care professionals, relatives, and interested individuals – Nora Ambord

“Who chose these measures anyway?”: The process of co-producing an evaluation plan for a Recovery College – Jordana Rovet & Kayle Donner

Our communities, our outcomes: The co-production of pan-Canadian Recovery College metrics – Holly Harris & Christine Ellery

The Recovery Colleges characterisation and testing (RECOLLECT) programme: building the evidence – Mariam Namasaba

Public interviewers collecting research data from NHS patients – Rebecca McNaughton & Sarah Trickett

A qualitative exploration of organisational factors influencing Recovery Colleges implementation – Simran Kaur Takhi

How culture shapes Recovery Colleges: Lessons from 28 Countries – Yasuhiro Kotera

RECOLLECT Q&A panel

Day 1 – afternoon 

Lightning talks

The dilemma of PPI: Just because we’re asked, does it mean we should agree to be involved? – Sam Robertson

Keynote 2: Seeking the social cure in mental health care – Brynmor Lloyd-Evans

The social drama of mental health professionals who are also former mental health service users – Karina Stjernegaard

‘What did you have to do to survive? The impact of digital story telling on recovery’ – Stephanie Hess

Day 2 – morning 

Keynote 3: Standing on the shoulders of giants: Influencing policy around recovery from addiction in England – Ed Day

“We don’t just ink skin”: A qualitative exploration of the experiences of tattoo artists responding to their clients’ mental health disclosures – Mark Pearson

Harnessing transformation through ‘madness’ – Katie Mottram

Lightning talks

SUCCEED Project: Advancing community-based approaches to mental health and psychosis rehabilitation in Malawi – Bessie Tiyanjane Nkhwazi

Maintaining the fidelity of peer support and its radical roots – Lisa Archibald

Day 2 – afternoon 

Enhancing recovery: Trauma-informed care among allied health professionals working with children and adolescents – Adi Stern

A personal experience of scientific collapse – Helene Speyer

Keynote 4: Recovering recovery: new challenges, new advances – Mike Slade

Refocus on Recovery 2023 (6-7 September, Nottingham)

240 conference participants (180 in person and 60 online) from 27 countries.

Download the 2023 conference programme

Feedback was very positive over all, with 100% satisfaction with online attendance experience.

Download the 2023 conference report

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Welcome video

Nev Jones – “What really matters?” Meaning, structure, place and positionality in the transformation of mental health services

Claire Henderson – The Recovery Colleges Characterisation and Testing (RECOLLECT) Programme: building the evidence

Pim Cuijpers – The role of digital interventions in recovery from depression

Simon Bradstreet and Audrey Buelo – Findings from an independent, theoretically driven, evaluation of ImROC online Peer Support Training

Stefan Rennick-Egglestone – Findings from the Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) programme

Michelle Funk – Community Mental Health Services – Person-Centered and Rights-Based Approaches

Philani Ama Kinyabo and Hilda Chinoko – SUCCEED Africa: Co-producing a rights-based, recovery-oriented intervention for people with lived experience of psychosis in sub-Saharan Africa

Andrew Grundy – Re-imagining acute inpatient ‘risk assessment and management’ from lived experience perspectives

Phil Morgan – Towards Co-production: Exploring Future Citizenship

Mike Slade – Scientific innovation, collective change

Laura Asher – Peer-led recovery groups for people with psychosis in South Africa (PRIZE): a randomized controlled feasibility trial

Philippe Delespaul – Towards Mental Health Eco-Systems — The Dutch New Mental Health Movement

Amanda Green – ‘I am mentally ill I am!’ An autoethnographic layered account of harm caused by the embodiment of an illness identity: how safety planning and recovery processes led to change

Francesc Gomez-Morales – Citizenship as mental health

Anneliese de Wet – Re-imaging peer support as an equitable mental health service

Refocus on Recovery 2019 (3-5 September, Nottingham)

Five expert workshops (59 participants from 11 countries) and 289 conference participants from 28 countries.

Download the 2019 conference programme

Feedback indicated 98% satisfaction with expert workshops and 90% satisfaction with the conference.

Download the 2019 conference report

Blogs about papers presented at the conference

Podcasts from keynote speakers at the conference

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Soumitra Pathare – Peer support in LMICs: underutilized resource

Mike Slade – Multiple perspectives on recovery

Alison Faulkner – The inconvenient complications of peer support in mental health

Vicky Stergiopoulos – Improving housing and recovery outcomes for persons experiencing homelessness and mental health challenges

Joseph Leong Jern-Yi – Social inclusion in Singapore – from Asylum to co-production in the community

Michael Rowe – Citizenship and Mental Health

Pesach Lichtenberg – Soteria: the final frontier of deinstitutionalization

Steven Allen – The role of strategic litigation in pursuing human rights-compliant reform of mental health services

Conference debate: ‘This house believes that there is no place for compulsion in a rights-oriented mental health system’

Refocus on Recovery 2017 (18-20 September, Nottingham)

Five expert workshops (104 participants) and 382 conference participants from 26 countries.

Download the 2017 conference programme

Feedback indicated 92% satisfaction with expert workshops and 91% satisfaction with the conference.

Download the 2017 conference report

Twitter highlights on Storify from the 2017 conference here.

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Welcome Video

Isabella Goldie
– Surviving or thriving: creating a movement for change

Manoj Kumar –
The feasibility of mental healthcare delivery by volunteers in a co-production
model of mental health care delivery in resource-scarce settings

Mark Hopfenbeck
– Peer-supported open dialogue: On Recovering Difference

Mike Slade –
New frontiers in recovery research

Nicola Kay – A
personalised approach to mental health – how to get person-centred, integrated
and better value services

Steve Gillard –
Peer support in mental health services: social intervention of “freedom to
be”?

Kwame McKenzie – Building societies that promote recovery

Jasna Russo – Connecting first-person knowledges of madness and distress: From individual stories to a collective and inclusive epistemology

Conference Debate – “This house believes that peer support should be an accredited mental health profession”

Boomwhacker Event

Refocus on Recovery 2014 (2-3 June, London)

403 attenders from 23 countries.

Feedback indicated 91% satisfaction with scientific content.

Download 2014 conference programme

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Alison Mohammed – welcome from Chief Executive, Rethink Mental Illness, UK

Terry Bowyer – The journey of recovery

Kenneth Thompson – Transforming services: Old baby, new bath? Old bath, new baby? New bath, new baby?

Mike Slade – Researching recovery

Mary Leamy – The REFOCUS Study

Geoff Shepherd – Organisational transformation

Alessandro Svettini – Changing services in Italy

Jane McGregor – Recovery Colleges: Lessons Learned from an Educational Perspective

John Larsen – Crisis Houses: an alternative approach to recovery

Samson Tse – balloon release

Conference Debate: Recovery is now a meaningless term

Refocus on Recovery 2012 (5-7 March, London)

Seven
Masterclasses (181 participants) and 343 conference participants from 18
countries.

Feedback satisfaction ratings ranged from 82% to 96%.

Download 2012 conference programme

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Peter Beresford, Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University, UK, long term user of mental health services and Chair of Shaping Our Lives.

Tom Craig, Director of Research and Development at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, UK.

Paul Jenkins, Chief Executive, Rethink Mental Illness, UK.

Nic Marks, founder of Centre for Wellbeing at the New Economics Foundation (nef), UK.

Mary O’Hagan, former service user and Mental Health Commissioner, New Zealand.

Mark Ragins, Psychiatrist and Medical Director of MHA Village Integrated Service Agency in California, USA.

Paulette Ranaraja, carer, Volunteer Carer Supporter at West London Mental Health Trust and Co-leader of Rethink Mental Illness’ Carers Education Training Programme, UK.

Mike Slade, Professor of Health Services Research, Institute of Psychiatry (now the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience), King’s College London, UK.

Question and answer session

Refocus on Recovery 2010 (20-22 September, London)

Eight Masterclasses (168 participants) and 509 conference
participants from 23 countries.

Feedback indicated overall satisfaction
ratings of 92% with Masterclasses and 88% with scientific content of the
conference.

Download conference programme

FILMS OF PRESENTATIONS:

Simon Bradstreet, Director, Scottish Recovery Network.

Dr Lynne Friedli, Centre for Welfare Reform, Sheffield, UK.

Dr Lindsay Oades, University of Wollongong, Australia.

Conference debate: this house believes that mental health services need to fundamentally change if they are to support recovery.