Dagmar Narusson promotes education focused on mental health recovery as part of an international project
Dagmar Narusson, Research Fellow in Social Innovation at the Institute of Social Studies, represents Estonia in the international project RECOLLECT. Together with a research team focused on mental health, she contributes to the implementation of a system of Recovery Colleges and a personalised recovery mindset.
Recovery Colleges are different types of learning institutions that base their work on a personalised recovery mindset and community approach. Unlike psychological education, adult education, and mental health services, Recovery Colleges provide knowledge on how to improve one's mental well-being and make sense of their recovery journey within society.
The starting point for Recovery Colleges is the understanding that individuals facing mental health challenges need to engage in their personal recovery to lead a fulfilling life in society and communities (even when symptoms persist from a clinical perspective). However, they require knowledge and skills for this purpose. Numerous colleges worldwide that teach personal recovery support this experience -- according to recent data, there are 221 Recovery Colleges operating in 28 countries on five continents.
Dagmar Narusson, a researcher in social innovation, has collaborated with the University of Nottingham Institute of Mental Health and Nottingham Recovery College. The teaching at the College follows the principle of horizontal expertise: individuals dealing with personal recovery processes are taught by representatives from three fields on each course – a mental health specialist, an experiential expert, and a community key figure (such as a police representative). Each student develops a learning plan with a mentor and chooses courses based on their needs, such as "Creative Well-being," "Emotional Resilience," "Living Well with Anxiety," or other topics.
As part of the RECOLLECT project initiated by the University of Nottingham, researchers explored the principles of Recovery Colleges, the content and organisation of courses, the involvement of experiential experts and community key figures in teaching, as well as funding issues. Recently, the consortium published an article based on the collected data, highlighting the cultural differences that need to be considered when organising the activities of Recovery Colleges in different parts of the world.
In Estonia, education based on recovery principles is still relatively new. Currently, there are only two Well-Being and Recovery Colleges – in Tallinn and Tartu. According to Dagmar Narusson, these Colleges fulfill an important mission, although they have not yet gained widespread support:
"We want to further introduce the recovery mindset to psychiatrists, community developers, mental health professionals, and society at large. While there is less stigma than before, there is still caution and negative attitudes (towards people living with mental disorders – edit.) in society, often caused by ignorance."
The lack of sufficient funding in Estonia hinders the opening of new well-being and recovery colleges. Dagmar Narusson attributes this situation to the fact that few are familiar with the approach of personal recovery and understand its importance to society. Results and publications from the RECOLLECT project are expected to raise awareness from an educational perspective in the field of mental health.
