Understanding the experiences of family, friends and carers attending Recovery Colleges: focus group study.

Background: Family and friends (family carers) provide substantial support to those with mental ill health, often affecting their own well-being. Subsequently, family carers have their own recovery journeys. Research highlights numerous benefits of attending Recovery Colleges, but whether these apply for family carers remains unexplored.

Aims: We aimed to explore family carers' experiences of attending Recovery Colleges across England, to understand current provision and how this might better include and support family carers.

Method: Together with lived experience researchers, this qualitative focus group study used collaborative thematic analysis of online focus groups and interviews with family carers and Recovery College staff from across England.

Results: We generated six superordinate themes: 'The "carer" identity is not clearcut', 'Recovery ethos applies to family carers too', 'Power of lived experience', 'Educational focus is appealing', 'Family carers deserve recognition and provision' and 'Reaching out and fitting around family carers'. Attending Recovery Colleges developed family carers understandings and gave them skills to navigate services and support themselves and others, which furthered their own recovery journeys. Shared learning spaces were helpful, but participants felt these were not always oriented to include family carers. Our findings revealed ways Recovery Colleges could increase their relevance and accessibility to family carers.

Conclusions: The unique characteristics of Recovery Colleges suited the recovery needs of family carers. However, more resources are needed to develop this potential and reach more family carers. Family carer co-researchers enriched our findings, and discussions with the Recovery College community furthered our recommendations for practice.