Vision:  (The world we seek)

Everyone experiencing serious mental illness (SMI; defined as a diagnosable mental, behavior, or emotional disorder that causes serious functional impairment that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities) will have access to high quality, culturally tailored, recovery-oriented services. Stigma and discrimination for mental health problems will no longer exist. All people with SMI will experience high quality of life in accordance with their values regardless of whether symptoms improve.

Mission: (The focus of our work)

We are a group of mental health professionals that seek to make maximum contributions to meaningful recovery for people with serious mental illnesses through training in service delivery, advocacy, collaboration with the mental health community, quality improvement, teaching, policy,  and applied research. 

The initial scope of this group is focused on the clinical psychology doctoral level training, but is subject to change over time and will be reviewed annually in line with the bylaws.

Values: (Guiding principles we are pursuing)

1. The social context is a vital perspective from which to understand and address mental health problems, those who experience them, and the social systems in which they develop, persist, and recover. This context includes structural disparities and biases based on social positions such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, as factors in mental health.

2. Scientific evidence makes a vital contribution to the development and validation of effective recovery-oriented services. As defined by APA, evidence-based practice is the integration of knowledge from research and practice in the context of individual characteristics, culture, and preferences (APA, 2008, https://www.apa.org/practice/resources/evidence).

3. Commitment to evaluation of training through quality improvement processes.

4. Commitment to evaluation of community implementation of evidence-based services.

5. Partnership with the mental health community, especially those with lived experience, to:

   1. Develop and adapt recovery-oriented services to be acceptable and maximally effective for the mental health community

   2. Develop and deliver training

   3. Develop and implement research that advances recovery-oriented practice 

6. The following should be factored into the development, study, and implementation of recovery-oriented services:

   1. Mental health stigma

   2. Diversity among people experiencing mental health problems

   3. The strengths of people experiencing mental health problems

   4. Disparities in access to quality recovery-oriented services

   5. Financial investment and financing models for these services