Belfast Recovery College

The Belfast Recovery College welcomes everyone 16+ to our free mental health and wellbeing education and learning programmes. We have a range of courses open to service users, families, friends, carers, all trust staff and anyone with an interest in mental health. Valuing the combined lived experience of mental health and professional knowledge we co-produce and co-facilitate courses to improve the wellbeing of the people in Belfast.

We follow three key principles:

HOPE – continuing presence of hope that it is possible to pursue one’s goals and ambitions.
CONTROL – the need to maintain a sense of control over one’s life and one’s symptoms.
OPPORTUNITY – the importance of having the opportunity to build a life beyond illness.

What is recovery?

The word ‘recovery’ can have different meanings to each individual.

“Recovery is about discovering or re-discovering a sense of personal identity, separate from illness or disability.” (Shepherd., Boardman, J.& Slade, M. 2008)

At the Recovery College students have the opportunity to discover who they are, learn skills and tools to promote recovery, find out what they can be, and realise the unique contribution they have to offer. They can see how others have found a way forward and that they can have more control over their life.

Who is it for?

Our courses provide the opportunity to learn together to help increase understanding of each other’s journey in promoting recovery for:

Service users
Family members
Carers
Trust workers
Members of the community and voluntary sectors

Everyone is known as a ‘student’.

Our courses include:

WRAP (THE WELLNESS RECOVERY ACTION PLAN),
Bring Me Back to Work with Care,
Building Resilience,
Getting a Good Night’s Sleep,
Building Self Esteem,
Menopause & Mental Health
Living with Depression,
Living with Anxiety,
Attitudes to Ill Mental Health
Understanding Gratitude,
Embedding Recovery in Day-to-Day Lives,

And lots more! View the full prospectus.

All courses are free to attend.

Equality form

You will have the voluntary option to fill in an equality monitoring form during the enrolment process.

Reasons why equality monitoring is important to you and important to us:

It helps us get to know people
It indicates a commitment to equality in service delivery
It raises awareness of gaps in services
It improves access to services
It helps guide service provision toward the specific health and social care needs of a variety of groups, therefore developing priorities and targeting resources more effectively
It enables better targeted health promotion and prevention programmes
Human Rights
It measures outcomes

You are not obliged to provide equality monitoring information and you can choose to answer some, all or none of the equality monitoring questions. Any information you do provide will be held securely by the Recovery College and will not be used for any other purposes.

How to contact:

Belfast Recovery College
Admin offices, Lanyon Building, 10 North Derby Street,
Belfast Bt15 3HL
Telephone: 028 9504 3059 (between 9am and 5pm)
Email: Recoverycollege@belfasttrust.hscni.net

How to apply

To attend a free course you must enrol with the Recovery College by downloading and filling in an Enrolment form or online Enrolment form.

What our students say:

“Really excellent, tutors were very friendly, respectful, informative and genuine and honest when they weren’t sure about something and then asked for clarification. Tutors were very articulate.”

“This was a very useful opportunity to take time out to reflect on my experiences as a social worker and a carer.”

“Great workshop and some really good honest discussion.”

“I thought the course was presented with very real life experiences and very educational.”

“Really found this interesting and informative.”

“I liked the ‘realness’ of tutors and other people sharing experiences – great to have honesty and strategies for dealing with anxiety.”

“I found the tutors extremely friendly at the same time professional and I felt they were part of the group rather than the tutors. Which is what is needed when dealing with Mental Health issues.”