Empowerment or Holding the Child Responsible? An Australian Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Policy Analysis

Recovery, as a concept is internationally recognised as a means to empower children to manage their own mental health. Recovery-oriented mental health policy production and service delivery in many Western countries, however, occurs in a discursive field influenced by biomedical and neo-liberal discourses. This article uses Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate an Australian policy-'A National Framework for Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Services: Guide for Practitioners and Providers', to critically analyse the competing versions of recovery. The findings reveal ideological slippages at work and show the operation of biomedical, developmental, collaborative, empowerment and responsibilisation discourses that compete in this mental health policy. This article shows how social workers require critical analysis to discern the consequences of different understandings of recovery in the child and youth mental health field. Despite the collaborative and strengths-based language of recovery, the analysis demonstrates the need to recognise the fine line between empowerment and the neo-liberal imperative for children to self-manage their mental health concerns. Recovery is well-recognised in mental health policy. However, the way recovery has been represented in mental health policy has been influenced by the biomedical model and the neo-liberal agenda. This article critically analyses an Australian recovery-oriented mental health policy to show contradictory versions of recovery. Whilst this policy uses strengths-based and collaborative language, the analysis shows that instead of being empowered children can be held responsible for managing their own mental health. The article shows the need for social work to critically think about recovery and what it means for mental health practice for children and their families.