Recovery College courses and their relationship with college characteristics: A document analysis

Recovery colleges (RCs) support people experiencing mental health challenges through an adult education approach. Individuals with lived and professional experience of mental health challenges can enrol onto RC courses as students. Course curricula varies across colleges but typically encompasses skills and knowledge acquisition in relation to understanding mental health difficulties and treatment, self-management of difficulties and living healthy lives outside of services. Cluster analysis has identified that RCs can be grouped into three types. strengths-oriented colleges (affiliated with statutory health care services and focuses on amplifying  students’ strengths), community-oriented (focusing on social connectedness) and forensic (focuses on amplifying strengths across forensic populations). This study aims to develop a typology of courses offered across English RCs and investigate how course content links with RC characteristics.



A document analysis of publicly available documents describing courses from RCs across England was conducted following READ methodology outlined by Daglish (2021). Documents were taken from English RCs focusing on personal recovery, co-production and adult learning approaches. Through expert consultation with RC National leaders, existing RC networks and liaison with host charities and mental health NHS Trusts, 88 RCs were identified across the three clusters.



Documents detailing course descriptions were available from 79 of the 88 RCs. Two hundred and forty-nine documents were screened out due to ineligibility. A total of 2365 courses over 554 documents will be analysed via a hybrid inductive-deductive approach.



Preliminary analysis on 300 courses titles indicates English RCs offering a broad array of courses, spanning art and crafts, being outdoors in nature and self-management of personal wellbeing across both strengths and community-oriented RCs.



Ongoing analysis will investigate whether course provision differs depending on RC type and whether colleges are maximising quality by learning from other similar courses in order to deliver course of high pedagogical content.