Dynamic apart together positioning of a peer-run recovery college within the landscape of (mental) care and support: A Dutch case study

Background: Mental health reforms increasingly promote integrated ecosystems combining healthcare, social services and community-based initiatives. Recovery Colleges (RCs), as peer-supported learning communities, are proposed as valuable assets. Yet, how such initiatives position themselves in relation to stakeholders across sectors remains underexplored.

Methods: This co-created case study examined the positioning of a Dutch peer-run RC within the (mental) care and support landscape. Six focus groups (N = 29) and two interviews were conducted with participants from the RC, neighbours and significant others, and representatives from social services, (mental) healthcare organisations, higher education institutions, and funders. Findings were contextualised using fieldwork conducted in this RC. Study design, data collection and analysis involved collaboration between academic and experiential researchers (RC partakers).

Findings: The RC holds distinctive value in offering an alternative free space for recovery, which stakeholders widely acknowledged and sought to sustain. RC positioning was characterised as 'apart together': ideally autonomous, while embedded in a care and support landscape where collaborative relations are valuable. Shared recovery-oriented logics fostered positive relations, yet practical dilemmas emerged in how the RC related to host organisations, funders, care and support services, and society. Recovery-oriented workers, such as experts by experience, surfaced as boundary spanners.

Conclusions: The case illustrated how positioning a peer-run RC involved ongoing negotiation between values and logics of all stakeholders involved. Findings underline the importance of safeguarding the unique RC identity in efforts to realise sustainable organisation of RCs and to lever their full potential within care and support.