What an historic, momentous day! Great dialogue and camaraderie was apparent from the start of the first meeting of the NLCMH Recovery Council. This group of great people has been appointed to tackle the hard work of helping to transform our local public mental health system to one based on recovery.

After attending to housekeeping details about how the Council will work, including reviewing its meeting schedule for the year, the group moved on to the difficult work of writing an organizational definition of recovery that NLCMH can rally around in the months and years ahead.

Input provided at the Learning Communities on individuals’ definitions and from other nationally known experts and organizations was very helpful in jump-starting the discussion.

Through a very respectful, thoughtful and lively conversation, a draft definition was prepared. This will be sent out to council members to review (it is always helpful to see your work in print!) and next meeting the definition will be finalized. Then the Council’s recommendation will be sent to Greg Paffhouse, CEO, for formal action and we will post the final result here in the Virtual Recovery Center.

Congratulations, hats off, and good luck to all our NLCMH Recovery Council members!