My name is Garry Ellison and Recovery In Action is a project that I developed after being inspired by my own recovery from active addiction and mental illness. I am a trained mental health sector peer supporter.

Peer support and mentoring initiatives are my 'passion' and I have seen some encouraging outcomes from some of the projects I've been involved in. Indeed I have myself rekindled my strength and resilience in the past by receiving the combined help from other service users and emphatic mental health care professionals, so I am particularly grateful to have benefited from this holistic approach to maintaining sustained well being.

Like all of us at at Recovery In Action as well as having a lived experience of using mental health services I also have a lived experience of finding identification, kinship and understanding among others like myself who were recovering and wanted to explore a life beyond merely surviving. We at Recovery In Action found that by mentoring others we began to have more faith in ourselves. We also experience a shared sense of hope and encouragement that we feel is crucial in a world that will constantly throw up challenges.

From this simple approach we often experience a felt resilience to the challenges we face from time to time. With this new found resilience we have discovered we are more able to try new things or re-discover our latent interests and / or talents.

So we at Recovery In Action are enthusiastic about helping the people we work with explore positive change on their recovery journey(s). We have all 'been there' and know what it feels like to feel very uncertain, lonely and frustrated whilst in the grip of mental and emotional turmoil. We also know how great it feels to sense new hope with the encouragement from others who have 'been there' and have found some workable solutions to similar problems, so we strongly 'believe' in this process!

Please help us continue this valuable work!