Catalysts for Change

This document sets out Scottish Recovery Network’s 10-year strategic plan (2026-2036). It presents our vision, mission, values and strategic outcomes, and explains how we will work with others to transform how Scotland’s mental health system operates.

In early 2025, we held community roundtables across Scotland to engage lived experience, peer support, third sector and public sector leaders in discussions about the future of peer support in mental health. What emerged was clear: a unified desire from across sectors to have peer support and recovery as a driving force for mental health transformation.

We want to accelerate the shift towards recovery by creating opportunities, conversations and spaces for lived experience and peer support leaders to be nurtured, grow, connect, and influence change. We are building a peer workforce and sharing recovery and lived experience models that fit the local cultures and strengths of communities across Scotland.

As policy, practice, and culture align around recovery, we will stay future focused and concentrate on what matters: Lived experience leadership, high-quality peer practice and community-led change.

Transforming Scotland’s mental health system requires change across many fronts. Our focus is on lived experience leadership and peer support because we believe they are essential to making that transformation happen. The result will be a mental health system that operates with people, hope, peer support, and recovery at its core.

Together we can make mental health recovery real.

Louise Christie, Director

Scottish Recovery Network.

Our Vision

Together we’re building a recovery-focused mental health system for Scotland, powered by lived experience and strengthened by peer support.

Our mission

Working alongside people, services and organisations over the next decade, we will nurture and champion mental health lived experience and peer support to drive recovery-focused transformation in Scotland’s mental health system.

Our values

Compassion – We listen to, validate and support those we are working with to have a voice and to develop their capacity to lead recovery focused change.

Collaboration – We bring people together to explore and develop new ways of working that value different experiences, expertise and voices, and rebalance power.

Curiosity– We value and explore different possibilities and strive to learn from others to build coalitions that embrace innovation and bring about positive change in our communities, services and wider system.

Courage – We believe in the possibility of change at a personal level but also in our organisations, services and society. We embrace a willingness to try new approaches and to be open to all voices even when it feels uncomfortable or challenging.

This section talks about the clear vision Scottish Recovery Network has for the new future of mental health. A future we’re working towards together.

It’s 2036, a wide range of factors affect mental health and wellbeing: societal factors as well as personal and life experiences. The impacts of health inequalities are acknowledged, with services working alongside different communities to co-design appropriate, culturally sensitive supports. This has led to changes in our mental health system with people being able to access a choice of compassionate support when needed and not only on the basis of diagnosis.

Change starts in community. Lived experience and peer support have grown, share their impacts and set the pace for innovation in mental health. Peer support approaches are treated equitably and recognised as legitimate, effective mental health support. Not an add on or ‘nice to have’ but a foundation for mental health and wellbeing and for a health system that works for all.

Community-based services are the front door. Peer workers listen to people, validate their experiences and help them navigate their options in a way that makes sense to them, at the time they choose. You get the level of support you need when you need it, with the time, space, and relationships to understand your care and to make informed choices.

As many mental health needs are well met in the community and people supported in their recovery by a skilled peer workforce, unnecessary demand on clinical services eases and they can focus where they add the most value.

Peer support can help support the growing demand for mental health support as its available now, no waiting lists and with people who really understand.

Growing Peer Support in Scotland (2025)

This section talks about why timing and current policy conditions are aligned to our strategic plan.

The conditions are right. Through many years of advocacy, action and work, Scottish Recovery Network and our partners have helped mental health recovery move from the margins to the mainstream in Scotland and internationally. Below are the policy and community opportunities that have aligned for health transformation powered by recovery:

Our vision and plan for the future aligns with World Health Organisation recommendations for Community Mental Health and Recovery, set out in ‘World mental health report: transforming mental health for all’ (2022) and ‘Peer support mental health services: promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches’ (2021). These call for building capacity within lived experience nationally to combat stigma and discrimination, and to promote human rights and recovery.

By engaging with the recovery approach, mental health policies can better align with human rights
principles, fostering a more empowering and person-centred approach to care and support.
World Health Organisation (2025)

In 2023 the Scottish Government and COSLA Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy set out a vision of a Scotland free from stigma and inequality, where everyone fulfils their right to achieve the best mental health and wellbeing possible. To achieve this, the strategy recognised the need for:

• Better informed policy, support, care and treatment, shaped by people with lived experience and practitioners, with a focus on recovery.
• A change in approach to ‘ensure that communities are better equipped to support people’s mental health and wellbeing and provide people with opportunities to connect with others.

In 2022, the Scottish Government and COSLA published Creating Hope Together: Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 and accompanying Suicide Prevention Action Plan. The strategy recognises the importance
of peer support as a way of giving people the chance to meet with peers to help guide their wellbeing and recovery, with Scottish Recovery Network funded to boost community peer support groups.

The Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework 2025- 2035 sets out a plan for realising these policy goals including a shift to prevention and early intervention and delivering care and support that is ‘people-led and value based’. The framework is underpinned by a commitment to whole person, trauma responsive, and human rights-based approaches. It also recognises that many of these policy goals are not new but have proved difficult to implement. There is a renewed urgency for them to be realised, which will require new thinking in planning, designing and delivering mental health services.

In early 2025, community roundtables were held to engage lived experience, peer support, third sector and public sector leaders from across Scotland in a discussion about the future of peer support in mental health. What emerged was clear: a unified desire from across sectors for peer support and recovery to drive mental health transformation.

How to unlock the intended policy impact

Adopting a mental health recovery approach provides the direction and framework needed to guide us in how we implement the policy goals highlighted. Adopting a recovery approach will also unlock new ways of thinking and working and as such bring much needed impetus to help us realise better access to, experience of and recovery outcomes from mental health services and supports.

This section talks about our role and contribution to achieving our vision for Scotland’s mental health system.

Broadening engagement

Through intentional network building, we work with people, communities and organisations with lived experience or experience of peer support. We support local facilitation through collaboration and sharing of practice and learning.

Sharing what’s possible

By testing, sharing and developing insights and evidence of lived experience and peer support approaches.

Enabling and inspiring change

By supporting lived experience and peer leaders to develop systems and processes that strengthen recovery and peer support approaches and inspire others to collaborate and change. Scottish Recovery Network are well placed to make a significant contribution to achieving Scotland’s mental health policy goals and aspirations. For many years we have brought people, services and organisations together to build a mental health system that is powered by lived experience and embraces peer support. We have been at the centre of the journey to mental health recovery, promoting and supporting lived experience involvement and leadership, and growing peer support in communities and services.

Our work is centred on ensuring people with lived experience are meaningfully involved in the design and delivery of mental health support. We believe that by working together, Scotland can have a recovery supporting mental health system that meets people’s needs in a way that upholds their human rights and is compassionate and trauma responsive.

Through our direct work we enable change, grow peer support capacity and nurture peer and lived experience
leadership.

This section talks about the activities, and system-wide efforts led by Scottish Recovery Network to get to this point.

Over the past 20 years, Scottish Recovery Network has worked with others to promote and support recovery approaches.

Our initial efforts focused on raising awareness of mental health recovery and working with government to increase the recovery focus of NHS services. This helped to build momentum but also brought learning about how the mental health system works and the challenges facing a small organisation seeking significant change. At the same time, many in communities and the third sector were developing and delivering recovery approaches including peer support. This created opportunities to connect others engaged in mental health recovery and share practice and learning, highlighting the importance of people with lived experience and their role in self-directed change.

Over the past 10 years, Scottish Recovery Network has focused on working alongside people with lived experience to create change. In 2015, the ‘Making Recovery Real’ initiative marked a strategic shift, establishing our mission to place the ‘experiences of recovery at the centre of life, policy and practice in Scotland.’ Scottish Recovery Network is small. Our approach is highly participative and nuanced. We have built strong relationships with many people, groups, organisations and services resulting in a high level of engagement with our work.

Our Shaping Recovery in Scotland evaluation showed we are seen as providing a different perspective, spaces for connection and learning that do not exist elsewhere, and for sharing what’s possible. We have worked intentionally not to be the experts, but to convene expertise and give capacity, space and validation. Scottish Recovery Network has established its place not by being leaders but by creating the connections and space for leaders to emerge. Through our work we have catalysed and nurtured recovery, lived experience and peer support initiatives across Scotland, sharing learning and showing that mental health recovery can be at the centre of our system.

There’s amazing stuff happening, people just don’t know about it. Let people see
the power of peer support in real life not just in reports.

Growing Peer Support in Scotland 2025

This section talks about our strategic outcomes and the actions Scottish Recovery Network will take to realise our vision.

Over the next ten years, we have an opportunity to reshape how Scotland’s mental health system works. This is a decade of work ahead of us. There is time to build, learn and grow, but we must act now to lay the foundations. Transforming the mental health system will take many people and organisations working together.

Our four strategic outcomes set out where we believe we can make the biggest contribution. Each outcome builds on the other, and together they describe how lived experience leadership and peer support can be at the heart of a transformed mental health system, one that operates with hope, connection and recovery at its core.

1. Lived experience leaders who influence communities, organisations and systems
2. An intentional peer support workforce that thrives across Scotland
3. Collaboration with lived experience and peer support drives innovation and builds momentum for
   recovery-focused change in mental health
4. A skilled and adaptive organisation that anticipates change

Bringing the strategic outcomes to life: 2036

Throughout this strategy, you’ll find illustrative examples showing what life could look like in 2036 when we achieve our strategic outcomes. These are not real people but fictional portraits to help us imagine the future we are working towards: a Scotland where lived experience leadership and peer support have transformed our mental health system.

Lived experience and peer leaders who influence communities, organisations and systems

Purpose: Create opportunities for lived experience and peer leaders to grow, connect and influence change across
communities, services and systems, helping reimagine leadership in mental health.

Key actions years 1-3

• Design and deliver mental health lived experience and peer leadership learning and mentoring opportunities
• Champion and amplify lived experience and peer leadership publicly to build visibility and legitimacy
• Establish and nurture continuing professional development networks for lived experience and peer leaders
• Advocate for and broker mental health lived experience and peer leadership roles at national and local level with clear accountability
• Champion parity with clinical leadership roles across service design, research, policy and funding decisions
• Support lived experience and peer leaders to recognise their skills, strengths and ability to lead change

We will build on this by

• Co-creating materials and experiences for lived experience and peer leaders
• Working with partners and stakeholders to sustain continuing professional development networks for lived experience and peer leaders
• Producing lived experience informed policy insights to influence strategy, funding allocation and service re-design
  and sharing international examples including success measurement beyond solely clinical outputs
• Working with others to ensure lived experience guides strategic decisions across the mental health system and role model recovery as a collective, future focused approach in our practice and partnerships
• Facilitating a national narrative shift to reframe how mental health recovery is understood, co-producing a shared language with partners around recovery approaches and lived experience leadership

What success looks like

Formal lived experience and peer leadership roles are established in the public and third sector. Policy and funding decisions are informed by lived experience leadership and insight. A lived experience peer leadership network providing connection, learning and mentoring is active and visible, amplifying recovery leadership nationally.

In 2036…
Shaping decisions, reimagining power

Aisha has a paid Head of Lived Experience role within a Health and Social Care Partnership. In this role she shapes strategic decisions and leads coproduction work as an equal on senior leadership teams. Her lived experience is recognised and valued as real expertise. This allows her to challenge assumptions, reimagine what’s possible which in turn influences funding and creates routes for people like her to step into leadership roles. She facilitates authentic and sustainable collaboration between communities and decision makers to ensure that lived experience guides re-design and policy development. She also mentors emerging lived experience leaders to grow their confidence and influence, helping cultivate a strong community of lived experience leaders in Scotland.

An intentional peer support workforce that thrives across Scotland

Purpose: Strengthen and scale an intentional peer support workforce by ensuring peer support is integrated into government policy and planning, equipping organisations with practical tools and readiness support and sustaining communities of practice so peer roles thrive across Scotland.

Key actions years 1-3

• Work with Scottish Government and others to ensure peer support working is integrated into the Mental Health and
  Wellbeing Delivery and Workforce Plans, the Suicide Prevention Action Plan and targets or expectations set for the growth and embedding of peer working across services
• Work with government and partners to ensure all peer workers have access to Peer2Peer training, learning and
  development opportunities, and continuing support including mentoring and coaching
• Work with others to implement a framework for peer support in Scotland across mental health and further develop practical implementation tools
• Provide development support and mentoring to organisations and teams to align with peer values and support organisational readiness and culture

We will build on this by

• Sharing learning from other countries on key factors in establishing and sustaining effective peer workforces
• Establishing practice networks across Scotland for peer workers and system changemakers to share learning, shape practice and maintain role fidelity
• Develop and share practice standards in workforce infrastructure including recruitment, supervision, training and continuing professional development

What success looks like

• Peer support is integrated into national delivery and workforce plans, with clear targets and expectations for growth
• Peer workers have demonstrated access to Peer2Peer training, development opportunities, practice networks and standards
• Organisations and teams are using practical tools and readiness support and sharing the impact of a peer workforce

In 2036…
Walking alongside

Marcus is a Peer Worker in his local community. He builds trusted relationships through validation and hope and walking alongside people on their recovery journey. He works in a multi-disciplinary team and receives regular supervision from an experienced peer lead. He connects with other peer workers through practice networks and is recognised by all as a valued colleague offering legitimate, effective support. Marcus can access ongoing learning and development opportunities that will help him deliver to the best of his ability and develop his practice. There is also a clear professional progression pathway for him. He works in a team culture that understands and values peer support as foundational to mental health and wellbeing.

Collaboration with lived experience and peer support drives innovation and builds momentum for recovery-focused change in mental health

Purpose: Creating collaborative spaces to design, test and adopt lived experience and peer-led approaches,
connecting people, practice and momentum, and showcasing Scotland’s innovation nationally and internationally.

Key actions years 1-3

• Continue to convene collaborative initiatives and learning networks powered by lived experience across peer-led
  groups, recovery organisations and public services to celebrate change and co-create and test new approaches
• Support communities to design lived experience and peer-led support aligned to their values and contexts; endorse and amplify grassroots initiatives and celebrate and share successes to sustain energy and visibility
• Nurture lived experience and the development of leaders who can vision and articulate mental health recovery and peer support for their community
• Identify and connect mental health system changemakers, including those new to working outside NHS structures, to share learning and build engagement with lived experience and peer support, helping them know they are not alone

We will build on this by

• Forming lived experience and service co-design collaboratives, working across sectors to transform the system. Building on the connections nurtured in years 1-3, support pilot areas to co-design services with lived experience at the centre taking co-production deeper than before in Scotland
• Experimenting with simple, practical ways of connecting lived experience leaders and system changemakers to share knowledge, methods and learning
• Connecting Scotland to global practice to learn from leading practice and to showcase Scotland’s innovation internationally

What success looks like

• Lived experience-led and collaborative approaches are designed, tested and adopted locally with learning and evidence of what works shared through national and international networks
• Scotland connects with and showcases lived experience and peer-led international practice, strengthening a confident, visible mental health recovery movement
• Clearer shared structures and approaches enable genuine co-production of services, ensuring lived experience and peer support influences service design
• Visible and active system and recovery changemakers in the mental health system leading change with lived experience and peer support

In 2036…
Collaboration, choice and connection

Jamie turns to a local peer-run crisis house in their community when they need support, knowing someone with lived experience is available 24/7 including the hardest hours of the night. The development of this new community resource is part of a wider re-design of all community mental health services informed and driven by lived experience working in collaboration with the NHS, Health and Social Care Partnership and Third Sector Interface Mental Health Service Forum. This collaboration has resulted in more choice of mental health supports, including non-clinical and peer-led services supported sustainably through statutory funding. In the crisis house the peer workers help Jamie explore what might help: talking through the night, staying in a homelike space or connecting with others who understand. There’s no police involvement, no A&E, no forced treatment. The peer workers sit with them without judgment, validate how they’re feeling in the moment, believe in their recovery and walk alongside them until they feel ready to leave. Through the crisis house and the recovery learning opportunities and peer support groups they connect them to, Jamie builds relationships and finds their own path forward.

A skilled and adaptive organisation that anticipates change

Purpose: Enable the organisation to anticipate change and adapt quickly through simple ways of working, focused skill development and strong partnerships, while remaining accountable to our partners, networks and stakeholders.

Key actions years 1-3

• Identify and use network approaches, technologies and project management practices that allow us to hold, maintain and nurture new and existing relationships with more stakeholders across Scotland
• Ensure operational and strategic leadership within the organisation models the values of lived experience and peer
  leadership
• Develop governance structures to ensure direct accountability to the lived experience and peer community
• Create opportunities for team members to develop, mentor and lead in futures thinking, system change and evidence led decision making
• Listen to and learn from people with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives, actively reaching out to diverse groups and communities to ensure our networks reach and reflect the breadth of lived experience across Scotland
• Create spaces and opportunities that work for different people’s needs, preferences, cultures and approaches, so that everyone can participate and contribute on their own terms

We will build on this by

• Modelling a collective approach within our team, organisation and community when creating and delivering action
• Keeping tools light and project plans time-bound so we can change course when needed
• Staying nimble, anticipating change and maintaining our connections to trusted partners so we can scale up
  when opportunities arise
• Building alliances and supporting Scottish Government, NHS, Health and Social Care Partnerships and Third Sector organisations to implement recovery-focused system change

Success looks like

• A governance structure co-developed, co-designed and validated by our partners and lived experience community
• A confident team capable of project leadership, capacity building and driving system change, using digital approaches when they help us do this work better
• Spaces for participation that flex to different needs, whether that means online gatherings, in-person events in
  accessible venues or offering different ways for people to contribute
• A small, skilled, diverse team, alongside an aligned and trusted group of partners ready to activate recovery-focused action

This section talks about how we will work to achieve our strategic outcomes.

Our approach is grounded in relationships, learning and collaboration. We create the conditions for recovery and peer support to grow by connecting people, places and ideas, and by working in ways that others can adopt and adapt. Guided by our values, we model the change we want to see, so that recovery becomes everyone’s business.

Model recovery and peer values in how we work and make it possible for others

We work in ways that reflect recovery and peer support: openness, curiosity, mutual learning and hope, inspiring others to work in the same spirit. We offer accessible and adaptable tools, learning and approaches so others already involved in recovery and those just starting out can both take action.

Relational at every level

We build and sustain trusted relationships across communities, services and government, knowing that meaningful change only happens through connection. We actively reach out to diverse groups, listening to people with different experiences and perspectives. We hold the kind of conversations people cannot always have elsewhere: honest, human, based in lived experience and we create spaces that work for different needs, cultures and approaches.

Host what does not exist elsewhere

We convene neutral, inclusive spaces where lived experience, practice and policy can meet as equals. We hold space for people to explore and show what recovery-focused mental health support can look like in practice.

Readiness and timing for change

Our long-standing relationships help us understand what’s needed and when. We focus our energy and support where change can take root, and help organisations adapt their culture, structures and processes so recovery and peer support can flourish.

A catalyst for change

We spark and nurture change by seeding new ideas, testing approaches, and supporting others to make them their own. We mentor emerging and established leaders to grow their confidence, influence and impact.

Convener and connector

We bring people and expertise together rather than positioning ourselves as the experts in mental health recovery and peer support. We use practical ways – mentoring, organisational support, local facilitation, and sharing what works – to build relationships and get change moving. We connect knowledge, amplify stories and enable collaboration across sectors and between lived experience and decision-makers.

Collective voice and momentum

We share what works, what’s possible and connect networks, so change doesn’t sit with us, it spreads. We bring people together locally and nationally to influence policy and practice, keep recovery visible and build intentional networks.

Adaptable and accessible

We are adaptable, providing different ways for people to connect with us. We reach out and take time to understand what people would like, what they need, and how they want to engage. By working in this way, we nurture lived experience leadership, build a peer workforce and create the conditions for collaboration and transformation in Scotland’s mental health system.

This section talks about the conditions and support that will help us achieve our strategic outcomes.

We’ve set out our vision and our role, and what we’ll be striving to achieve over the next ten years. We know this is
a significant change in thinking and practice. It will require ambition, persistence and tenacity.

We know there are things that can help make this happen. We need lived experience leadership, friends of lived experience and recovery, and system changemakers working together. Recovery needs to be owned by people with lived experience, and others can play their part in supporting it. We also know there will be barriers, but we believe that by working together and focusing on these areas, we can overcome or work around them.

Lived experience leadership

Making this happen requires more lived experience leaders ready to take on responsibility and lead recovery and system change work. It means paid lived experience roles active in service design, policy, governance and co-production, with consistent, sustained support from government, public and third sectors

Collaboration and system changemakers

We need system changemakers across the mental health system who are driven to do things differently. These are professionals who go beyond their job title, often motivated by their own lived experience or family stories, who are ready to lead change alongside people with lived experience. They need to know they are not alone, and we can help connect them. We need workforce planning that prioritises recovery, relational and whole-system approaches, and collaboration and leadership from Health and Social Care Partnerships and NHS Boards across Scotland. This requires partners investing time to build relationships, challenge risk and lead change.

We already have people ready to lead
it’s not about reinventing training, it’s
about backing what works
Growing Peer Support in Scotland (2025)

Government leadership and direction

Government taking a lead and providing clear direction on mental health recovery, lived experience and peer support will help create the conditions for change. This includes ensuring peer support is integrated into national delivery and workforce plans.

An empowered community and third sector

We need to counter outdated narratives on recovery, lived experience and peer support, and directly or indirectly support new and growing recovery initiatives being piloted in communities. This means promoting learning, encouraging diverse conversations and decision-making, and supporting public sector system changemakers to reach out and work with third sector and community colleagues.

Lived experience led digital development

We will explore with people how digital approaches can support our work, ensuring people with lived experience shape how we use technology, and use digital tools where they help us connect, share learning and do our work better, whether through film, online spaces or new approaches as they emerge.

Lived experience should shape service design,
funding decisions, reviews of practice…all of it.
We bring different questions, and that’s the point.
Growing Peer Support in Scotland (2025)

Recovery will thrive in Scotland where people with lived experience are trusted and given the space and conditions they need to lead the communities and services they are a part of. If we choose it, Scotland can make recovery the way our mental health system works, not the alternative to it.

Over the coming years, our contribution to this vision will focus on:

Making lived experience peer leadership central to recovery

We will grow lived experience peer leaders by convening people, exchanging knowledge, peer mentoring and intentional network building. We will work to establish and normalise lived experience peer leadership as a core pillar alongside clinical leadership in policy, design and funding.

Having a peer workforce people can see during their recovery journey

We will work with our partners so that peer support is part of workforce planning. We will share practical tools and approaches and support organisations to be ready for peer support. We will share frameworks and leading practice to ensure recovery impact.

We need peer workers in leadership
roles not just entry-level posts.
Growing Peer Support in Scotland (2025)

Backing the innovation, collaboration and momentum of our partners

We will support our partners by platforming, convening and sharing their practice, innovative work and ideas. We will protect space and time to broaden our networks, share what’s possible and inspire change.

Adapting to the rapidly changing picture of mental health for Scotland and our partners

We will stay nimble and small enough to make change quickly so we can pivot when our communities, services and partners need us. We will take advantage of digital technology and new community building and system change techniques as they emerge.

There should be peer support lead in
every HSCP, like we have for nursing or
social work.
Growing Peer Support in Scotland (2025)

In 2036

Scotland’s mental health system has deeply transformed. Lived experience leaders like Aisha can shape decisions at every level, which ensures peer support and recovery-focused approaches guide policy, funding and practice. Peer workers like Marcus are recognised as essential to the mental health workforce, they offer hope and trusted relationships that help people thrive in their communities. People like Jamie have choice and autonomy over their mental health care, leading to a more sustainable recovery journey. The transformation is evident everywhere: a system built on relationships rather than diagnosis, powered by lived experience, strengthened by peer support and driven by the belief that mental health and recovery is everyone’s business.

Together we can make this happen

We invite everyone who shares this vision to join us. By collaborating across communities and services, with lived experience leaders, system changemakers and friends of lived experience and recovery we can build a recovery-focused mental health system powered by lived experience and strengthened by peer support.