Wellness Recovery Action Plans (also know as WRAP plans) are a useful tool that can help you get more control over your condition, treatment and can empower you to work on your own recovery. It’s usually worked on with your mental health professional at first, but it is YOUR plan and can change at any time. We’ve put together some information on WRAP here, and you can learn more at the official WRAP website.
It can be useful to put together a plan when you are well, containing things that you may need but can’t ask for when you are unwell.
If you are able to share it with your loved ones, it can provide them with some basic information on how to keep you well, or how to help you when you are unwell. It can help you to share it with someone, and may make you feel comforted that someone is involved with your plan.
There are five key elements to WRAP plans:
- Hope – the belief that we can get well, stay well, and live well
- Personal responsibility – it’s up to us to formulate our plan, take action, and do what we need to in order to stay well. We get to decide what happens in our plan, and the steps we want to take.
- Education – Learning about our BPD, what it is and what it means to us in an everyday sense, is a vital part of WRAP. The more we know, the better we can help ourselves live well.
- Self Advocacy – being able to express our needs helps us to get what we need, what we want, and what we deserve to support wellness and recovery.
- Support – we will feel better in ourselves for receiving the right support that we have asked for, and being able to offer that support to others in the same position.
Building your WRAP usually involves six ‘tools’ from our wellness toolbox:
- Daily plan – a description of how we look and feel when we are well, and things we do every day to stay well.
- Stressors – often called ‘triggers’ or ‘red flags’, these are situations, events or topics that may lead to uncomfortable or distressing feelings.
- Early warning signs – subtle things we notice that tell us we might need to do somethign to avoid becoming unwell.
- Signs things are getting worse – when things break down, we start to feel worse and worse despite our best efforts. Here we make a list of signs that things are getting worse, and a concrete plan as to how to avoid being in crisis.
- Crisis plan – this helps you to stay in control even when things feel out of control, by making plans when you are well so that your loved ones can provide the support you need when you need it during a crisis.
- Post crisis plan – this is a chance to move from crisis to wellbeing, and a chance to evaluate the WRAP and change it if needed.
The important thing to remember is that this is YOUR plan, it’s written when you are well and ensures your needs are met if you are unwell, but can be changed according to your needs.
Learn more about WRAP at the official WRAP website.