Wellness Recovery Action Plan®
Wellness Recovery Action Plan® is an evidence-based approach to daily living, that supports us in maintaining wellness through life's challenges.
What is now commonly referred to as WRAP, involves creating a personalised plan that outlines what you need to maintain your mental health and wellbeing, as well as strategies, and tools that you can use when you are not feeling well.
It is a tool that people can use to feel more in control of their wellbeing and personal recovery.
‘WRAP can help you to create a snapshot of yourself at different stages of being well, to unwell and through peer discussion, and learning from the course create action plans to better support yourself at these different points.’
‘Everyone was so nice and moreover - so brave for sharing their challenges and vulnerabilities with others. Remain hopeful is what I will take away most from my time at the WRAP Group.’
A brief history of WRAP
The Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) was established in 1997. A group of several dozen people, who had faced serious mental health challenges and were keen to improve their own lives gathered for an eight-day retreat in northern Vermont, USA.
Many of the participants had spent time in psychiatric hospitals at different points in their lives. They convened to share practical strategies for reclaiming and maintaining their own wellness.
One of the key figures at the Vermont gathering was Mary Ellen Copeland, who facilitated the discussions. Mary Ellen had been experiencing anxiety, depression and severe mood swings that led to numerous hospitals stays. Disillusioned with the psychiatric practices of her time, which focused on medication rather than her overall recovery, she sought ways to restore her health and regain control of her life.
With the support of her social worker, she began creating surveys in the 1980’s to gather valuable insights from peers, marking the start of her recovery journey. The responses helped her pinpoint five essential concepts for recovery: hope, personal responsibility, education, self-advocacy, and support. She also identified various ‘wellness tools’ for improving wellbeing.
This research opened doors for her to speak at various conferences and events, earning considerable recognition through the 1990’s, leading her invitation to lead the groundbreaking eight-day peer support retreat in Vermont.
WRAP was born from the experiences of those people attending the sessions. After the retreat, one person said, 'these ideas are all well, and good, but how do I put them into action in my life?'
Mary Ellen, working with Jane Winterling developed the strategies and tools shared, into the original WRAP book and later, Mary Ellen expanded it into a comprehensive training curriculum.
Mary Ellen is an author and educator, and has written many books on mental health and recovery, and works closely to support the continued development of WRAP across the world.
Leeds Recovery College lead facilitators are certified in WRAP facilitation.
We adhere to the original Wellness Recovery Action Plan® curriculum and since 2019, have assisted hundreds of people in creating their own WRAP plans.
We offer community WRAP courses for people (18+) who live, work or study in Leeds. We also offer a specialised 2-day WRAP workshop designed for those working in health and care system in Leeds, focusing on improving their own wellbeing.
Additionally, we deliver WRAP facilitator training and certification, which is a paid programme. We collaborate with orther organisations and work closely with Advocates for Human Potential, the licenced holders for WRAP, to support its development across the UK.
Video link: How it all began, the story of WRAP and Mary Ellen Copeland
WRAP website: The WRAP story, origins and healing by Mary Ellen Copeland
The way WRAP works
In WRAP we create spaces where people can share ideas and strategies to produce a plan that works for them.
Each course is led by two or more trained facilitators, each having their own WRAP plan for personal wellbeing. They will share information and provide the space to help you figure out what works best for you.
WRAP is for everyone, it focuses on your life experiences, strengthens, and goals, rather than diagnoses or illness. The only requirement to have a WRAP is that you want to. With WRAP, you can:
Discover simple, safe, and effective tools to create and maintain wellness.
Develop a daily plan to stay on track with your life and wellness goals.
Identify what throws you off track and develop a plan to keep moving forward.
Gain support and stay in control in difficult times.
The WRAP process supports you to identify the tools that keep you well and create action plans to put them into practice in your everyday life. All along the way, WRAP helps you incorporate key recovery concepts and wellness tools into your plans and your life.
The Key Concepts of WRAP
The five key concepts are at the core of WRAP and, together with the values and ethics of WRAP, help bring it to life in our own experiences.
Hope. The belief that we can get well, maintain our wellbeing and achieve our aspirations and goals. By reflecting on what hope signifies for us, we can also identify ways to cultivate it in our lives.
Personal responsibility. It's up to each of us to take action and do what we can to maintain our wellness. We decide what personal responsibility means to us, and the steps we want to take for ourselves and our health.
Education. Learning all we can about wat we are experiencing helps us make good decisions in all aspects of our lives. We can each define education for ourselves and explore the steps we want to take to learn more in any area of our lives.
Self-advocacy. Reaching out to others and communicating our needs helps us get the support we require, want and need. We can decide how we want to advocate for ourselves in various areas of our lives, including how we express our needs and preferences to others.
Support. Both giving and receiving support from others can improve our wellbeing and enhance our quality of life. We get to decide what support means to us, identify the qualitities we seek in supporters, and determine how we wish to offer and recieve support.
Learn more about the WRAP values and ethics of delivery, and the key concepts and WRAP on the offical WRAP Blog (links to external website).
It is important to note that undertaking a WRAP may not be the best course of action during times of crisis or when experiencing significant difficulties with your mental health. In such moments, it is essential to prioritise immediate support and care, to navigate through the challenges you are facing.