On Wednesday, March 20th, for the second consecutive year, a recovery symposium took place at Ghent University. The aim was to make recovery more visible and open for discussion, while providing valuable experiences and insights to individuals in recovery, their loved ones, and practitioners.

This year, the keynote speaker was Professor Dr. Mike Slade, one of the pioneers in the field of research on recovery in people with mental health problems. Mike Slade is affiliated with the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom as a professor of 'Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion'. He played a key role in the development of the globally used CHIME framework for promoting personal recovery. During his lecture, Mike Slade discussed the importance of recovery and innovative supportive practices, such as recovery academies established in the United Kingdom and many other countries, as well as 'citizen science' in mental health care.

Prior to this, Dr. Ilse Goethals and Hanne Evenepoel from EQUALITY//ResearchCollective (HOGENT) highlighted the functioning and contributions of the Recovery Academies in Flanders. The entire event was introduced by Professor Wouter Vanderplasschen, who leads the 'Recovery & Addiction' research group at Ghent University.

A recording of the recovery college can be found via this link.