If you do not know what a Golden Ducky Award is then by the end of this book you will.

This guide focuses on severe mental illness and provides an up-to-date argument for why mental health services should focus on personal recovery. In the UK, government policy over the past 10 years or so has given greater credence to the concepts of recovery – in the latest New Horizons document this has become explicit. Embracing recovery is the future of mental health services and mental health professionals need to grasp its fundamental principles and values. Recovery-oriented services represent a win-win situation for both service users and professionals but the journey towards these services is beset with challenges, demands and the possibility of setbacks. Mike Slade argues why this is a desirable direction for mental health services, what personal recovery means and how to put it into practice.

The starting point of the book is to clarify what personal recovery is, based on Bill Anthony's well-known definition that can be paraphrased as ‘living a life beyond illness’. Hope, identity, meaning and personal responsibility are identified as the four key processes of personal recovery, with opportunity later being added to link this to social inclusion. The early chapters review the strengths and weaknesses of clinical, disability and diversity models of mental illness and provide justifications for giving primacy to personal recovery over clinical recovery. In the later parts of the book Mike Slade sets out the personal recovery framework and its implications for mental health practice and services, giving emphasis to the importance of relationships, recovery values and the elements of a recovery-focused mental health service. The final chapters rehearse possible answers to concerns about personal recovery held by clinicians and service users, and examine steps to transform our mental health services.

This book fills a vacuum for a broad publication on how recovery values can be translated into working services and concrete actions. Despite notable aspirations, no national service can claim to be recovery-oriented, but the 26 case studies included in the book give examples of good and sometimes outstanding practice. One of these is the Golden Ducky Award which is given in mock Hollywood style in Los Angeles to service users for their achievements in attaining greater independence. Perhaps Mike Slade should be awarded a similar prize for his attempt to provide a rationale and path for mental health services in the 21st century.