Your Mental Health Recovery Plan

If you’re living with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, having a plan can help. A mental health recovery plan is a way to be active and take control of your mental health so you can work toward achieving treatment and recovery goals.

When you are part of making your recovery plan, you can make sure it reflects YOUR experiences by letting the treatment team know what matters to you. When they understand what YOU want and need, together you can figure out the best plan of action to move forward.

Elements of a Mental Health Recovery Plan Include:

• Your goals (life, health, treatment, medication, and overall recovery)
• Daily activities you need to do to stay well/healthy
• Words that describe you when you are feeling well/healthy

• Relapse triggers (events or experiences that contributed to a past setback)
• Early warning signs that things are not going well
• Crisis plan for difficult times

Build a Support Network

It may be helpful to work on your recovery plan with members of your treatment team or support network. That way, they will be familiar with your goals, triggers, and warning signs; can recognize if you start to have a setback; and can support you as needed.