The Grow to Recovery Train-the-Trainer Program

Recovery-oriented services are becoming popular in the mental health field. However, recovery-oriented services are still in the beginning stages in Taiwan. Many professionals do not know how to implement recovery-oriented services. More effort should be made to improve mental health services in Taiwan. Hence, the aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the Grow to Recovery Train-the-Trainer program.

The study will verify the effectiveness of the Train-the-Trainer program with the cluster randomized controlled trial design. The resesarchers will recruit 10 psychiatric rehabilitation organizations, including 80 mental health professionals and 160 people with mental illness. The professionals of the intervention group will receive a online training and then conduct a 5-month recovery group. The organization-level and service user assessments will be collected to examine the overall outcomes.

Professionals of the train-the-trainer group will receive an online training and then conduct a recovery group.

Mental health professionals will receive an online training, a trainer manual, a recovery manual (for people with mental illness), and "Pathways to Recovery: A Strengths Recovery Self-help Workbook". The online training includes the concept of recovery, the implementation of recovery-oriented services, and the introduction of the Grow to recovery group. After the training, these professionals will conduct a 5-month Grow to recovery group in their own organization. People with mental illness will attend the Grow to recovery group delivered by mental health professionals who has received the online training.

Mental health professionals will not receive any training. People with mental illness will receive a spiritual book and read by themselves.

The RSA will be used to examine participants' perceptions of the degree to which the organization follows recovery principles. The researchers will collect data from professionals and people with mental illness.

The RPRS measures the recovery competence of practitioners from the perspectives of people with mental illness.

The SRS scale consists of 45 items, with six subscales: the sense of hope, disability management/taking responsibility, regaining autonomy, social functioning/role performance, overall well-being, and willingness to help.

The Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SS) is a multidimensional, self-administered instrument that addresses all five functions of an interpersonal relationship to assess the various functional dimensions of social support, including emotional , informational, tangible, affectionate, and positive interaction (Sherbourne & Stewart, 1991).

A BSRS-50 scale comprises 50 items, which best reflect the original ten symptom dimensions and three indices of psychopathology from the SCL-90-R.

The researchers will conduct focus groups with professionals of the intervention group after completing the 5-month recovery group. Those qualitative data will be transcribed and analyzed.

Inclusion Criteria: Professionals: working in the community psychiatric rehabilitation organizations being willing to participate in the study People with mental illness having a diagnosis of mental illness living in the community being age 20 yr or older receiving services from the collaborating organizations filling out the scales independently being able to participate in a recovery group and follow the group rules Exclusion Criteria: attending another recovery-related group