Mecklenburg’s

Promoting      Recovery and   Opportunity through Mentoring,      Insight,        Support and       Education

Recovery  University

“A Training Environment Like No Other”

By Briana Fishbein

How often have you had to sit through a training where you were forced to maintain eye contact with the presenter, sit up straight, stay focused, not doodle, keep quiet and wait till the question & answer section to give feedback, or wonder how the material presented actually effected your work? It may not be surprising that these elements are quite typical, standard and a common part of what is expected of you while your are attending the training.

From the moment a participant walks into a Recovery University training, s/he immediately notices that the very setup and atmosphere is far from the norm that many of us have become accustomed to. Mecklenburg’s PROMISE Recovery Training Collaborative has taken an unexpected approach to educating participants about the Recovery model which is being used to transform the mental health system, not only in North Carolina, but the Nation as a whole. 

Where prior trainers lined tables with pencil’s and blank paper, the Recovery Training Collaborative covers the room with toys, play dough, crayons, small games, and of course, blank paper to draw on, oops I meant, “take notes on”. What kind of philosophy is this you may wonder? These educators have found benefit in allowing participants to “be distracted”. They encourage individuals to color, play with silly putty, or doodle. Why? Educators at the Recovery Training Collaborative have found that when attendees are forced to maintain eye contact and remain focused, they are more likely to “phase out,” not retain any of the information presented, and feel bored. However, participants who were able to doodle, keep their hands busy, get up and walk around, and not have to stare at a speaker for 4 or 8 hours, report increased levels of enjoyment and retention.

Additionally, the trainers at the Recovery Training Collaborative go one step farther than the average training seminar to make the material presented interesting and easy to apply to the participant’s work and lives. The Recovery Collaborative employs educators, consumer trainers and mental health professionals to create interesting and informative presentations that incorporate a range of delivery methods. While typical trainings may be taught by simple power point slides and question & answer sessions, attendees of Recovery University are exposed to the perfect combination of group collaboration, movies, drawing, debates, lecture, slideshows and personal accounts of recovery, to ensure that the information presented appeals to everyone’s learning style. In addition to the material taught, the Recovery Training Collaborative provides each attendee with a training manual containing full page printouts of the power point presentation, and a CD that includes all of the training material for each session.

It is important to note that the Recovery University trainings are “all inclusive,” meaning that they do not separate consumers, from family members, from community members, from professionals.   Rather, the trainings are designed to promote the inclusion of all persons involved in the mental health system, therefore erasing the line between “service provider” and “service recipient” and replacing it with “us.” 

The Recovery Training Collaborative will unveil module VI : Recovery Tools in December, 2007. This will be the last of the Recovery Training modules, and will be open to anyone who has attended trainings I through V. Currently, the Recovery Training Collaborative is offering Module I: Why Recovery? The History of Mental Health & the Emergence of the Recovery Model, Module II: Recovery Model: Past, Present & Future, Module III: Promoting a Recovery Oriented Environment, Module IV: Implementing Recovery: Preparing for the Team Meeting, and Module V: Implementing Recovery: A Team Approach to all members of the mental health and general community. All trainings are scheduled from 8:30am to 4:30pm at 1515 Mockingbird Lane, Suite 203,  Charlotte, NC 28209.

In support of the application of the Recovery Model in transforming our local mental health system, Mecklenburg LME has required that any service provider who is receiving IPRS funding for Community Support Services, send at least two agency experts (one professional and one consumer expert) to the Recovery University trainings.  If your agency has not already attended Modules I, II, III, IV or V, please sign up on our website www.meckpromise.com under Recovery University-Registration.