The public health significance of the consumer perspective is underscored by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2003), which enunciated two guiding principles for mental health services in the US: First, services and treatments must be consumer and family centered, geared to give consumers real and meaningful choices about treatment options and providers. Second, care must focus on increasing consumers' ability to successfully cope with life's challenges, on facilitating recovery, and on building resilience, not just managing symptoms. In response to the Commission report the VA has mandated a shift to a recovery model and committed a large amount of resources to implementing it throughout the system.