Navigating in a Value-Driven Practice: A Study of a Dutch Recovery College as a Learning, Social, and OrganizOrganizational Space

Marloes Van Wezel^1,2*Christien Muusse²Jenny Boumans²Floris Scheerstra³Annelies Broos³Judith Lizé³Kelly Leunen³Martijn Kole⁴Ton Verspoor³Dike van de Mheen⁵Hans Kroon^1,2

• ¹Tranzo, Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands
• ²Department of Reintegration and Community Care, Trimbos Institute, Utrecht, Netherlands
• ³Enik Recovery College, Lister, Utrecht, Netherlands
• ⁴Cavallo Advies, Utrecht, Netherlands
• ⁵Other

Introduction. Recovery Colleges (RCs) facilitate a peer-supported learning environment, co-created bottom-up for and by people with mental vulnerabilities. They explicitly aim to facilitate something different from traditional mental healthcare services, as their ideology is rooted in an emancipatory movement (with focus on peer support, empowerment, and personal recovery). RCs' ideology comes with key peer support values such as equity, reciprocity, connectedness and empowerment. This study provides an experiential description of an RC practice, scrutinizing how peer support values are enacted and how partakers experience such value-driven practice. Methods. This study employs triangulation by combining twin-interviews, participatory observations (with auto-ethnographic elements), and (internal) documentation. All aspects of this study were co-created with experiential researchers who are RC partakers. 26 RC partakers were interviewed by a duo of an academic and an experiential researcher. Additionally, the first author conducted participatory observations over several years. Results. RC practice is described as a learning, social, and organizational space, each with their own physical and experiential elements. Our analysis showed that enacting PS values ultimately was about making or holding space, which was experienced as carrying both opportunities and challenges for recovery. RC partakers often experienced the value-driven practice as valuable, but at times challenging to navigate in. We zoom in on challenges regarding collaborative learning, taking up and safeguarding space, and organizational growth. Discussion. Navigating in an RC practice requires reflection and meaning-making of all involved. Our findings highlight how RCs facilitate opportunities for recovery by fostering spaces for dialogue collaborative learning, mutual support and co-creation, while also revealing the fragility of these spaces. Experiences in RC practice are highly context-and person dependent. Navigating in such practice therefore requires continuous reflection and dialogue among all involved. To allow for such a culture to emerge and sustain, organizational free space should be safeguarded, eliminating constraints or interference from external parties.