- 1. Promoting a culture and language of hope and optimism: ensuring a service culture and language that makes a person feel valued, important, welcome and safe, communicates positive expectations and promotes hope and optimism.
- 2. Person first and holistic: putting people who experience mental health issues first and at the centre of practice and service delivery; viewing a person's life situation holistically.
- 3. Supporting personal recovery: ensuring personally defined and led recovery is at the heart of practice, rather than treating personal recovery as an additional task.
- 4. Organisational commitment and workforce development: environments and culture that are conducive to recovery and a workforce that is appropriately skilled, equipped, supported and resourced for recovery-oriented practice.
- 5. Action on social inclusion and the social determinants of health, mental health and wellbeing: upholding the human rights of people experiencing mental health issues and challenging stigma and discrimination; advocating to address the poor and unequal living circumstances that adversely impact on recovery.

There is much discussion in the literature around the application of the term recovery and its associated outcomes, most notably regarding the realms of 'clinical' and 'personal' recovery. About 23 recovery outcomes, David McGrath writes:

Recovery is broadly defined as 'living as well as possible' (South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust 2010), with minimal symptoms of mental ill health (Slade et al. 2012). As a concept, it introduces notions such as hope, empowerment and aspirations to inspire the consumer to attain a 'meaningful life' (Anthony 1993, Corrigan 2006, Slade et al. 2012).

Application of this is about identifying realistic and practical strategies to help consumers cope with and reduce disability using evidence-based interventions (Corrigan 2006).

'Clinical' recovery includes criteria in areas such as remission, stabilisation of symptoms, psychosocial rehabilitation, improved vocational activities, additional social connections and independent living (Bellack 2006, Kopelowicz et al. 2005, Liberman et al. 2002). It is largely biomedical in nature, focused primarily on illness and impact on functioning.

In contrast to clinical recovery, 'personal' recovery has been described as a process or continuum that is subjectively defined by the individual and is 'rated' by the person who is experiencing the mental health difficulties who is considered the expert on their recovery. It is derived from consumer oriented literature, case studies and qualitative surveys. Rather than being focused on biomedical understanding of illness and disability, the focus is on strengths or improvement measures such as mental health and wellbeing outcomes. … Influenced by consumer oriented literature and advocacy, the concept of personal recovery is more frequently being prioritised over clinical recovery and is becoming embedded into contemporary policy and service provision. … Consistent with the shift towards 'personal' recovery and assisting individuals to find a meaningful life, it is important to align the principles of recovery to a set of processes