Recovery Camp: Assisting consumers toward enhanced self‐determination

Mental health consumers are often socially isolated and may lack the basic leisure competencies which serve as a critical building block for community (re)integration. Therapeutic recreation (TR), as a treatment modality for people with mental illness, is yet to be fully embraced in the Australian health‐care setting, despite having a strong historical foundation in North America. A team of academics created a TR experience, termed Recovery Camp, which was designed to collectively engage consumers and future health professionals drawn from a range of discipline areas. The 2014 Recovery Camp was staged over a five day period and involved 28 adult consumers living with mental illness. Consumers undertook a diverse range of experiential recreation activities engineered to facilitate individual engagement and to encourage the development of positive therapeutic relationships and teamwork. The camp atmosphere was deliberately community‐based and recovery‐oriented, valuing the lived experience of mental illness. Using a 2 × 3 design involving a camp and comparison group, the study sought to examine the influence of a TR programme on the self‐determination of individuals with a mental illness. Those who participated in the Recovery Camp reported an increase in awareness of self and perceived choice post‐camp, relative to the comparison group. While this difference remained significant for awareness of self at three‐month follow‐up, there was no significant difference in perceived choice between the two groups at follow‐up. Study findings serve to support the role of recreation within a recovery framework to positively change the health‐related behaviour of mental health consumers.