News of Network’s first CEO announced at AGM

The Design in Mental Health Network’s 2022 AGM was held ‘virtually’ on 9 November, and – as usual – saw a number of Workstream leads report on some of the highlights of the previous 12 months. There was also news of a highly successful 2022 conference and exhibition, a new Lived Experience Advisory Panel, and the appointment of the DiMHN’s first full-time salaried employee, a new Chief Executive, as The Network’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

After welcoming attendees to the DiMHN’s 2022 AGM Chair, Philip Ross asked those Board members in attendance to introduce themselves, which they did in turn. Apologies for absence were then read, and the Minutes of the 2021 DiMHN AGM – which had been held ‘virtually’ on 3 November 2021 – were received and accepted as a true record. Philip Ross then read his Chairman’s report. He said: “2022 witnessed our first full conference and exhibition since COVID, and we didn’t just return to pre-pandemic levels, but actually set new records of attendance for both. The conference programme has continued to grow, delivering more case studies of best practice in mental health design, both here in the UK, and around the world, and hearing from people with lived experience. A great example from the conference was the empathetic design considerations Nick Smith gave with the work at Bradford District Care Trust. He talked about his experience being in a Section 136 Suite, and how this encouraged him to think about the need for space for police to ‘decompress’ in ‘after an event like that’.” 

First roundtable session