Helen uses her professional background in social work and education, as well as her lived experience of her own recovery from mental illness, to expand and challenge the concepts of recovery-oriented practice within the mental health sector. She provides consultancy and training services nationally and internationally on the opportunities, challenges and tensions of creating recovery-oriented practice within services.

Helen is passionate about the reality of recovery from mental illness/distress.

She works with organisations, providers and people utilising services, in assisting them to further create environments where the focus is on supporting people in their personal efforts of recovery.

In combining her lived experience with her professional background, and drawing on her interest in education and learning, she has developed a number of large action learning projects around recovery-oriented leadership and systemic change.

She continues to learn from such opportunities, how to support organisations, workers and people with a lived experience, so the concept of recovery is more clearly understood, embraced and utilised as a central focus within service delivery environments.