This website was launched in 2011, in line with a new mental health promotion strategic direction for mental health. The site was established to share our knowledge and resources, and to make available information and experiences that can enhance recovery and promote mental health and wellbeing.
This is one of the major program areas of Community Services; a not-for-profit community based social service provider in Sydney, NSW Australia; operating predominantly in the fields of homelessness / housing and mental health. Service provision commenced in the mental health sector in 1993, after several years of community advocacy focusing on a lack of community-based housing support services for people leaving hospital. Today, Community Services has become one of NSW’s leading edge non-government mental health service providers.
Ruah’s way of working in the mental health field is based on an integrated approach which focuses on three key areas:
- The Personal Journey – the individual’s road to recovery drawing on their strengths, aspirations and capacity for self-learning and management
- The Social – providing holistic recovery support within a person’s family, social and cultural context with a vision of social inclusion
- Clinical intervention and medical management including mental and physical health needs.
In other words, recovery has personal/experimental, social, clinical and medical dimensions and Ruah works to integrate these components into its service models and programs.