Collaborative Approaches to Recovery and Participation in Mental Health: Occupational Therapy, Lived Experiences and Rehabilitation Perspectives

Mental health rehabilitation and occupational therapy increasingly emphasise recovery-oriented, person-centered approaches that support people to pursue meaningful lives beyond symptom reduction. However, persistent inequalities in access, limited service-user influence over care, and fragmented support across health, social, educational, and employment systems continue to restrict participation Important questions remain about how the perspectives and lived experiences of service users can meaningfully inform practice, how professionals and people with lived experience can work collaboratively, and how individual goals can be translated into sustainable opportunities in everyday and community life. Recent research indicates that peer involvement, co-production, shared decision-making, strengths-based practice, and occupation-focused interventions can improve engagement, empowerment, recovery experiences, and participation outcomes. Nevertheless, evidence remains uneven across populations and settings, with ongoing debate concerning how collaborative practices should be implemented, evaluated, and adapted across the lifespan and in diverse cultural and service contexts. Further investigation is needed to identify effective partnership models, and to understand how they influence long-term recovery, and improve meaningful participation and social inclusion.This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of how collaborative approaches contribute to recovery, participation, and quality of life in mental health. It will examine how the perspectives, experiences, and preferences of people with lived experience can inform practice and support, as well as how people with lived experience, families, peers, occupational therapists, rehabilitation professionals, and other stakeholders can work collaboratively in goal setting, decision-making, service design, implementation and evaluation. Contributions may address the mechanisms through which collaboration supports autonomy, meaningful activity, community inclusion, education, employment, and sustained engagement. The Research Topic also seeks to identify implementation barriers, conditions that enable effective co-production, and methods for evaluating outcomes that reflect clinical and personally meaningful change. Given that collaboration, empowerment, and personally meaningful change are often experiential and process-oriented, studies exploring the subjective experiences of people with lived experience and the processes through which collaborative practice unfolds are welcomed.To gather further insights into collaborative recovery and participation across occupational therapy, rehabilitation, and mental health services, this Research Topic welcomes articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:- Qualitative and observational research exploring subjective experiences and processes related to recovery, participation, and collaborative practice- Recovery-oriented, person-centered and collaborative mental health practice- Peer support, lived-experience leadership, and co-production- Supported decision-making and collaborative goal setting- Occupational therapy interventions that emphasize collaborative practices to support meaningful activity, participation or social inclusion- Collaborative practices in services supporting children, youth, families, adults or older adults experiencing mental ill-health- Partnership-based approaches in inpatient, outpatient, community, and digital settings- Cultural responsiveness, equity, and inclusiveness of mental health rehabilitation in in diverse cultural and service contexts- Evaluation of collaborative models, implementation strategies, and participation outcomes Topic editors: Michio Maruta, Kazuki Yokoyama, Shu-Ping Chen, Ryota Hayashi Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86565/collaborative-approaches-to-recovery-and-participation-in-mental-health-occupational-therapy-lived-experiences-and-rehabilitation-perspectives