Wellness Recovery Action Plan®

A Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) is a self-designed plan for making your life and your mental health recovery what you want it to be. It allows you to:

• Discover the tools and strategies that will help you to become and remain well
• Create a daily plan for living a healthy life on your own terms
• Better understand what challenges or stresses you, and how you can respond to these upsetting events
• Plan for what to do before, during, and after a health crisis

In 1997, the process for creating a WRAP was pioneered by a group of people who wanted to find ways to fulfill their own dreams and goals. They wanted to overcome their mental health challenges on their own terms, according to their own self-understanding. Dr. Mary Ellen Copeland—who also lives with mental health challenges—recorded their process. Soon enough, WRAP began spreading throughout the mental health and addictions recovery world as its reputation for effectiveness grew.

Since then, it has been studied extensively by researchers. It is now considered an evidence-based approach for supporting mental health recovery with many proven benefits, including:

• Decreasing difficult thoughts and behaviours
• Increasing feelings of empowerment
• Improving quality of life
• Helping achieve dreams and goals