Recovery Oriented Change Initiative

Programs designed to support mental health organizations in Texas! The application period has ended, but another round of The Learning Network will be offered in the future.The Recovery Exchange (TREx) is an 18-month learning collaborative, designed for agency teams that are ready to plan and implement recovery-oriented change projects, offering both virtual and in-person activities.The Learning Network (TLN) is an 8-month online, live learning series, available to any staff members (or groups) interested in better understanding how to provide human-focused, recovery-oriented care.

• Program Overview

The Recovery Exchange (TREx)

The Recovery Exchange is an 18-month, intensive learning collaborative, designed for clinical mental health organizational teams ready to plan and implement recovery-oriented change projects. Organizations may choose to pursue projects that involve such changes as improving service planning, Peer Support Services Program Development (e.g., supervision, hiring and recruitment, job descriptions), or building capacity to facilitate Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAPⓇ). Participating teams will pursue specific, recovery-oriented change projects with consultation and training support.

• Program Overview

The Learning Network

The Learning Network is an 8-month learning series for organizations to increase their knowledge and familiarity with recovery-oriented, person-centered mental healthcare. Each month, participants will take part in a 1.5 hour learning session online. See the list of dates and topics below.

• Program Overview

Meet the Team

As a clinical social worker using her lived experience with mental health challenges to promote a more recovery-oriented culture of behavioral health service delivery and human-centered practices, Amanda acts as a unique complement and partner to national peer specialist experts, like Amy Pierce. This intentional clinician/ peer specialist partnership models the kind of mutually beneficial professional relationships that are happening throughout clinical agencies with peer support staff who are integrated among multi-disciplinary teams and continue to occupy their intended non-clinical, professional roles. Amanda is recognized as a national expert in an approach to service planning that is human-centered and driven by the person's quality-of-life goals and identity beyond their mental health condition. In these programs, Amanda will serve as a facilitator, trainer, and consultant by drawing on her field experience in the Texas behavioral health system. Amanda is also a WRAPⓇ facilitator.Amanda is the owner of Sidecar Consulting, and previously served as the Recovery Institute Director at Via Hope. She worked as a clinician, supervisor, and program administrator during her 13 years at Austin State Hospital. She has called Austin home since moving there in 2000 to attend University of Texas for her Masters in Social Work.

Amy’s level of subject matter expertise is unparalleled in Texas. She has been working in the Peer Movement in our State for nearly two decades, having started the first peer support program in the state hospitals and one of the first people certified to deliver peer support in Texas. Now, as an accomplished resource on the implementation of peer services and other recovery-oriented practices, she routinely delivers training and consultative support to both peer and clinical field-based professionals who are working to better understand the peer specialist role and improve the quality of behavioral health service programs. Amy understands and can support others about the complexities related to occupying a formal leadership position as a peer specialist, having worked as the program coordinator for a transitional peer residential housing project and a supervisor for other peer workers at an LMHA.Currently, Amy serves in the role of Technical Assistance Strategy Advisor at Achara Consulting. Prior to that, she worked as the Recovery Institute Deputy Director at Via Hope, where she led learning collaboratives that focused on peer services, supervision, and recovery-oriented programs. She has been the CEO of Resiliency Unleashed, an international training and consulting company, gaining a deep understanding of change dynamics across systems and around the globe. Amy is also a time-honored Advanced Level WRAPⓇ facilitator, able to provide Seminar II “trainings for trainers” and coach people new to facilitating WRAPⓇ. Amy also provides a highly impactful rights-oriented perspective in her consultative work, having served as the Chair of the PAIMI Council in Texas and currently on the Disability Rights Texas Board of Directors.

Anna is a consultant specializing in participatory approaches to leading change, strategy development, and implementing recovery-oriented, person-centered practices. Before founding Alpinista Consulting in 2014, Anna served as Deputy Director of Via Hope, designing and managing the Recovery Institute and other collaborative learning initiatives that integrate implementation science and participatory change methods, helping organizational teams work with complexity while implementing practices like peer support and human-centered service planning. In recent years, she has continued to consult on program design and evaluation for a variety of recovery-focused learning collaboratives.She is also a Demystifying Peer Support trainer, and has had a leadership role in initiatives with a variety of organizations focused on promoting mental health in communities across Texas. These include the Episcopal Health Foundation Congregational Engagement Learning Network to Promote Mental Health (2018 to present); Hogg Foundation Advancing Recovery in Texas Learning Network (2016-2019); and St. David’s Foundation Libraries for Health with RAND and Via Hope (2022-2023). Anna has particular expertise in, and teaching others to, use participatory methods within complex systems change. She has worked with people all over the world and across domains as they learn participatory action research and facilitative methods and will bring these approaches to these programs.

Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP^®)

What is WRAP®?
Wellness Recovery Action Planning® (WRAP®) is a process that anyone can use to get well, stay well, and make their life the way they want it to be. Rooted in the principle of self-determination, WRAP® is an effective, evidence-based tool for personal wellness and discovery.Certified WRAP® Facilitators work within groups to guide people in developing their own WRAP® plan. While this tool can be used by anyone who wants to make a positive change in the way they feel and react to life, it often has a specific focus such as managing mental health or substance use challenges or re-entering society following incarceration.

Get a sense of what you’ll experience in the WRAP® Seminar I by watching the video linked below:

• Video: WRAP® Overview (7 min)

WRAP^® and Staff Wellness
The upcoming WRAP^® Seminar I at ASH will invite participants to examine ways to better focus on their well being in this trauma-exposed workplace, but attendees have the freedom to choose any area of their life they wish to focus on (overall well being, upcoming event, etc.). This kind of offering goes beyond typical employee wellness programs and, as the result of the informal but nature of WRAP^® sessions, can foster a deeper level of peer-based connection and support among staff working in environments where compassion fatigue, burnout and secondary trauma are common. By offering WRAP^® agencies can boost overall work performance and productivity, along with staff retention.

Using WRAP^®a Professional Role: WRAP^®Facilitator Training for Trainers
ASH staff who are interested in using WRAP^® in their professional work can become certified as a WRAP^® facilitator by attending the 5-day Seminar II (tentatively scheduled for October 2025). Completing your own WRAP^® by attending a Seminar I serves as the prerequisite for the Seminar II TOT. ASH, as a participant in The Recovery Exchange (TREx) program, will be able to send 2-3 people to Seminar II free of charge (typically over $1,000). While ASH staff will create their own WRAP^® in the 2-day workshop, facilitators often provide WRAP^® using an 8-week group format.

WRAP^®: Its Use and Who Should Facilitate

WRAP^® FAQs

Is this mandatory?Nope. Just an opportunity to focus on your own wellness on work time.Will I be expected to share in the group?Absolutely not. There will be lots of group conversation, individuals sometimes prefer to experience the workshop silently, working solo in the WRAP® workbook.What exactly do I get out of this?We can’t guarantee what it’ll do for you personally, but here are some of the things people have stated they got out of it:
- Free lunch both days & lots of snacks
- The opportunity to hear from others about what wellness, challenges, and strategies they experience
- A sense of community with the group
- Learning specific strategies for how to guide people to explore their own wellness journey (providing a structure without giving advice or directives)
- Meeting the prerequisite for becoming a WRAP® facilitatorWhat makes WRAP^® unique from any other type of “recovery planning?”WRAP^® isn't about assessment, treatment, or professional service planning. The approach and process is built upon the belief that the individual knows what’s best for them. By organizing that knowledge into a plan – or set of actions according to the circumstances (when things are going well, when things are breaking down, a time of crisis, post-crisis planning), anyone can improve their wellbeing.