To help people with mental health problems become active citizens within their community, we take a holistic approach and based our services on the principles of Person-Centred Planning and the Recovery Model.

By providing dedicated and trained staff, services will aim to increase social and vocational skills in order for individuals to access, maintain or return to employment or other meaningful employment.

The Recovery Star

Mental Health Providers Forum (MHPF) has spearheaded the development of an innovative outcomes measurement tool for use in mental health services. In collaboration with Triangle Consulting, the Mental Health Recovery Star has been designed to support and measure change when working across mental health service settings with adults of working age. The Recovery Star is an effective key working tool which supports individuals in understanding their recovery and the progress that they are making. As an outcomes measurement tool, it enables organisations to measure and summarise the quality and impact of the services that they deliver.

Helping you in your recovery

We are here to help you in your recovery from mental illness. Recovery usually means changing things in a number of areas of your life so that things work better for you. Making changes isn’t easy but understanding how change works can help.

Many people who are recovering from mental illness have found it useful to think about recovery as a journey with different stages. They find it helps to think about which stage they are in and to get a picture of where they are on their journey. We use the Recovery Star to help in this.

How we change things that aren’t working for us –
The Ladder of Change

Everyone is different and it’s important to understand each person’s individual circumstances but the pattern of recovery is often similar. Consider the Ladder of Change.

At one end of the ladder is the feeling of being stuck – of not feeling able to face the problem or accept help. From stuck we move to accepting help. At this stage we want to get away from the problem and we hope that someone else can sort it out for us.

Then we start believing – that we can make a difference ourselves in our life. We look ahead towards what we want as well as away from the things we don’t want. We start to do things ourselves to achieve our goal as well as accepting help from others.

The next step is learning how to make our recovery a reality. It’s a trial and error process. Some things we do work, and some things don’t, so we need support through this process.

As we learn, we gradually become more self-reliant until we get to the point when we can manage without help from a project.

Recovery isn’t necessarily a case of moving from the first point, to the last. Different people will be at different points and may move forwards or backwards as their circumstances change.

Wherever you are on this journey, placing yourself on the ladder can help you see where you have come from, what your next step is and how we can best help you.

Seeing the big picture – the Star

The Recovery Star looks at ten areas of your life:

For each of these areas there is a ladder to help you work out where you are on your journey for that area of your life. Although all the ladders are different, they follow the same pattern with the same five stages. Chaucer Homecare Ltd’s Vocational Service will work closely with you using the Recovery Star to identify your needs and to plan and support not just pathways into paid employment but help and support you with other important areas of your life.

The Vocational Profile

Your Key worker will help you build a person-centred vocational profile. This is a detailed and comprehensive reference document for your use that will enable you to identify all your support networks, your aspirations, skill and talents and help us to support you in finding the kind of work you want to do.

Our one to one vocational programmes can also fast track individuals who wish to explore opportunities for education and training, volunteering or paid employment. Our workers will accompany you to colleges, job centres or work placements and help with applications, CV’s, and interviews and help you overcome any barriers that arise during that process.

We also have good connections with other vocational rehabilitation providers who can deliver a variety of additional support programmes.

Literacy and numeracy training and basic computer skills are also available on a one to one basis through our committed and valued volunteers and will help you access a more formal range of programmes.