Clare Walker and colleagues describe a trust-wide initiative to evaluate practice in supporting service users to rebuild their lives

An important area of work for mental health services is in helping people to recover, both clincally and personally, from their illness. This article describes a recovery strategy group that was developed to improve and integrate recovery-focused principles into clinical practice in local mental health services. It considers the prerequisites and challenges, the successes and limitations and the evolving nature of the group. It concludes with recommendations for others considering starting up a similar group.