"...recovery is a journey of healing and transformation."

 
 

Recovery happens here and all across South Carolina through the recovery programs sponsored by SC SHARE!   We believe that recovery happens when people with mental illnesses are surrounded by others who are filled with hope and excitement about life.  Recovery has many components, very often including counseling, medications, and medical care; recovery also depends on other components such as support from other consumers and information about the skills needed to live well in recovery.  We specialize in that support and information.  Recovery happens here!

Definition, Values and Principles

The South Carolina Recovery Steering Committee has submitted the following definition of Recovery for review and adoption by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

Recovery is a process by which a person overcomes the challenges presented by a mental illness to live a life of meaning and purpose.

To support this definition of recovery and to support its mission, the South Carolina Recovery Steering Committee has asked that the South Carolina Department of Mental Health to establish within and throughout its organization an environment where the process of recovery can be experienced by people who have mental illnesses by the setting of agency-wide goals that create, support and maintain the following principles/values:

  1. Recovery happens when people take responsibility for their mental health and begin to direct the course of their lives.
  2. All people have strengths and talents that they can use to establish a life in recovery.
  3. People in recovery and services providers must focus on health holistically, being aware of mind, body, spirit and environment.
  4. Meaningful work, safe housing and pleasurable leisure are necessary components of recovery.
  5. People with mental illnesses must be given choices about all aspects of their lives, and they must be supported in these choices even when there exist a likelihood of failure.
  6. People in recovery need valuable roles in the community.
  7. People in recovery may still experience symptoms.
  8. Having adequate finances to meet basic needs is vital to recovery.
  9. People recover in partnership with family, friends and professional mental health workers and in communities where public and private service providers and advocacy groups work in partnership to provide support.
  10. Hope is a vital component of recovery.