I had chosen a good time to visit Vermont – the leaves on the trees were changing colour, creating spectacular scenery. What was even better than the scenery was the sense of community I experienced among the people I met in Vermont.
Several people told me the story of Hurricane Irene. Two years ago, Hurricane Irene came to Vermont and caused great destruction. For several days part of Vermont was flooded, without power, and cut off from the rest of the state. The restaurants in this area decided rather than throw away the food they could no longer refrigerate, they would cook everything they had and provide free meals to people in the community. The hurricane also destroyed the state psychiatric hospital and the patients had to be evacuated. But with the destruction of the old hospital came the opportunity for creating something new. The money that was spent on the old hospital was freed up to make a new smaller hospital, and the substantial surplus was invested in ‘peer-run’ community mental health projects and services.
‘Peer’ is the term used in the USA to describe people who have personal experience of mental health issues, people who in the UK may be referred to as mental health service users. I visited several peer run support projects and services in Vermont including the Wellness Co-op (http://www.thewellnesscoop.org/), Another Way (http://www.anotherwayvt.org/) and Alyssum (http://www.alyssum.org/)
In the UK, one of the recent fashions in mental health, and health services in general, is ‘service user involvement’ i.e. if a new mental health service is going to be developed, the perspectives of people who are going to use that service should be sought, and incorporated into the new service. This is good in theory, but the process can be tokenistic and ‘service users’ views’ are not always listened to or acted upon. In contrast, in the places I’ve visited in the USA, the focus is not on service user involvement but service user control. People with personal experience of receiving mental health services are designing, setting up, and receiving funding for, the kinds of services they want, rather than just being consulted about services that professionals think they should have.
Alternative Routes to Mental Health Recovery 
I like the distinction you make between involvement and control. There is a very good analysis of how this was happening in Canada in the 1990s in a book called Changing the Paradigm of Community Mental Health.