Mapping recovery at Odyssey

Odyssey is using the REC-CAP assessment and planning tool to support tāngata whai ora to build on their strengths

“Recovery isn’t just personal, it’s interpersonal.”

Professor David Best, University of Derby and Australia National University

In February 2020, Professor David Best visited Odyssey and met with staff and whai ora to talk about Recovery Capital. 

The three inter-related components of Recovery Capital

Recovery capital is made up of three inter-related components - these are our personal, social and community resources. When we think about our personal recovery capital, we are working on building up our self-esteem, self-efficacy, and capabilities in three areas - coping, resilience and communication. However, recovery is intrinsically a social process and so to increase our personal capital, we also need to rely on our social recovery capital – a social identity we can be proud of; our support systems and relationships, and the sense of belonging attached to them  –  and our community recovery capital – our access to employment, housing and other resources in the community such as support groups, institutions, and clubs. In this way recovery capital encourages a collectivist, community approach to wellbeing. It explicitly recognises that recovery happens between people; it is interpersonal, rippling out from individuals to families, communities, neighbourhoods.

Supporting whai ora to map their recovery: the REC-CAP assessment and planning tool.

Odyssey is working with Professor Best and PhD candidate Zeddy Chaudhry to embed the REC-CAP, a recovery assessment and planning tool that measures strengths that are at the heart of Recovery Capital, at our adult residential programmes.

The tool supports a shift away from thinking about recovery from a problem-based or deficits lens towards a place that acknowledges people’s strengths. Whai ora are then supported to consider how they might use these strengths to overcome the barriers they may face on their recovery journey. It provides a way of measuring progress in building up personal, social and community recovery capital. The REC-CAP measures whai ora’s strengths, capabilities and connections and uses these as a basis for developing a personalised recovery care plan to guide whai ora to achieve their goals, using existing strengths to build more strengths.

Further reading on Recovery Capital:

The Potential of Recovery Capital – a video and short paper introducing the concept by David Best and Alexandre Laudet

Find out more about REC-CAP, from the Recovery Outcomes Institute