Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP)

Mental Health Recovery and WRAP was started in 1989 by Mary Ellen Copeland. Personally, Mary Ellen experienced years of mental health difficulties and achieved long-term wellness and stability using the strategies she has now incorporated into materials known as WRAP or Wellness Recovery Action Plan.

Mary began her studies of how people help themselves, get well, and stay well and based her work on the day-to-day coping and wellness strategies of people who have experienced mental health difficulties.

WRAP programs are designed individually in practical, day-to-day terms. While it does not necessarily replace traditional treatments, it can be used as a compliment to any other treatment options an individual has chosen.

In developing a WRAP, an individual will identify the wellness tools that will most benefit them and will then learn how to use these tools when needed, every day or when particular feelings or experiences arise. WRAP helps monitor and relieve uncomfortable and distressing feelings and behaviors and identifies an individual’s best course of action. WRAP planning also includes Crisis Planning (an Advance Directive) that lets others know how to respond when a person cannot make decisions, take care of themselves, or keep themselves safe, and a Post Crisis plan to guide the individual through the often difficult time when they are healing from a crisis.

Key elements of WRAP include:

• Wellness Toolbox
• Daily Maintenance Plan
• Identifying Triggers and an Action Plan
• Identifying Early Warning Signs and an Action Plan
• Crisis Planning
• Post Crisis Planning

WRAP is designed and managed by the individual and is designed to:

• decrease and prevent intrusive or troubling feelings and behaviors
• increase personal empowerment
• improve quality of life
• assist in achieving life goals and dreams

The Mental Health Association of Nebraska provides WRAP training taught by highly trained consumer facilitators who follow Mary Ellen Copeland’s nationally recognized recovery curriculum. For additional information or to arrange a training please contact MHA-NE at (888) 902-2822 or visit their website at www.mha-ne.org.

Visit www.mentalhealthrecovery.com to learn more about Mary Ellen Copeland and other WRAP resources.