Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP)

Wellness Recovery Action Planning, or WRAP, offers tools for people living with mental health challenges, or who are managing other health issues, to help them attain the highest possible level of wellness. A WRAP workshop guides participants through the process of identifying and understanding their personal wellness resources (“wellness tools”), and then helps them develop an individualized plan to use these resources on a daily basis. Studies show this and other participants have fewer sick days, live more active lives, visit the emergency room less often and feel healthier overall.

WRAP workshops typically range in size from eight to 12 participants and are led by two trained co-facilitators who use a WRAP plan themselves. Workshops include discussions, individual and group exercises and lectures. Key WRAP concepts are illustrated through examples from the lives of the facilitators and participants. Workshops are typically delivered over eight weekly, two-hour sessions, but can be adapted for shorter or longer periods to more effectively meet the needs of participants.

The goals of WRAP include:

  • Teach participants how to implement the key concepts of recovery (hope, personal responsibility, education, self-advocacy and support) in their daily lives.
  • Help participants organize a list of their wellness tools – activities that can help them feel better when they are experiencing health difficulties – and prevent these difficulties from arising.
  • Assist participants in creating an advance directive that guides the involvement of family members or supporters if the participant can no longer take appropriate actions on his or her own behalf.
  • Helping each participant develop an individualized, post-crisis plan to use when the health difficulty subsides, promoting a return to wellness.

For more information on WRAP or any other self-management workshops offered by The UVM Medical Center, contact the Community Health Improvement team at 802-847-2278.