Rainy Day Planning
Awareness of 'Rainy Day Planning' as a highly effective tool for staying well is patchy and misunderstood. The benefits of creating and using such a plan include: receiving help earlier and therefore usually recovering sooner; ensuring that everyone involved clearly knows the signs of approaching problems and what to do; ensuring that a person or people close to you have permission to ask for help for you even when you say you don't want it. Rainy Day Plans can minimise the impact and trauma for others and for yourself. They can also help you to manage your own mental health problem. This can be extremely useful and can give you the opportunity to take more responsibility for your  mental health.

Many of us with mental health problems are experts in our own condition. We know from past experience what helps us when we become unwell. If all of our lights went off we might want to know where to find a torch! Likewise, we may want to have a plan in case things go mentally 'pear-shaped' for us. One way of doing this is to have a 'rainy day plan'- we write this for ourselves when we are well. It can include whom we trust to speak on our behalf and the signs and symptoms that may indicate that we are becoming unwell together with information about the circumstances in which we may need help, usually a combination of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. A 'rainy day plan' can give us a clear voice in decisions about our care and treatment and can be particularly useful for those of us who have problems which may recur. The plan may be called a 'Relapse Plan', 'Rainy Day Plan', 'Advance Statement' or something similar.

A 'Rainy Day Plan' can include:

• clear information about the signs and symptoms that may indicate that you are becoming unwell
  

• what you want people to do when you become unwell and who these people are information about what has and hasn’t helped you before