Co-hosted by Compassionate Mental Health and Community of Communities, with knowledge partner, Salus, we hosted three open, round-table discussions on innovative design for mental health.

The event stemmed out of our charitable project: Homestead - a national network of creative, therapeutic environments, combining relational care and Homestead’s aims is to be a buffer between hospital and independent living, so that more people can stay well and stay out of institutions, creating new potential for individual and community wellbeing. Our ethos with Homestead is to put compassionate, relational care, design excellence, community and nature at the heart of everything we do.

Event 1

Mental Illness & Wellness in the UK: Is the system working? Can design help? 

The first of three radical roundtables explored shifting narratives around mental health; and considered how sustainable design thinking and relationship-centred practice can help seed new models of care.

Speakers:

CHAIR: Brigid Bowen (Compassionate Mental Health)

Russell Razzaque; Consultant Psychiatrist, RCPsych Presidential Lead for Compassionate & Relational Care

Progessor Eenasul Fateh; Psychologist, social scientist, strategy consultant and artist-researcher; member of clinical team Trauma Service, Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust; Board Member, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

Jacqui Dillon; Campaigner, writer, international speaker and trainer specialising in hearing voices, ‘psychosis’, dissociation, trauma, abuse, healing and recovery. National chair of the Hearing Voices Network in England.

Event 2

Past & Future Approaches to Mental Wellness: Therapeutic environments, relational practice & more 

Having established a case for change with our first-round table, this second event focused on beacons of past good practice. Our panel took participants on a journey of their experiences of running therapeutic communities: what worked and didn’t work, and why they think relationship-centred practice and symbiosis at a societal level is so important.

The discussion looked experientially at the spaces and places – indoors and outdoors - where illness, care and recovery take place in existing centres; focusing on themes of safety, welcome, nature and community; and asked how the lives of those both being cared for and giving care can be impacted both positively and negatively by design and environment.

Speakers:

CHAIR: Heather Macey and Adam Peavoy; Makower Architects

Peter Cockersell; CEO of Community Housing and Therapy

Rex Haigh; NHS Consultant Psychiatrist in Medical Psychotherapy. Formerly Chair of the Association of Therapeutic Communities and Clinical Advisor for the National Personality Disorder Programme. Founding member of ‘Emergence’, the service user organisation for personality disorder. Founder of the Royal College of Psychiatrists ‘Community of Communities’ quality network and now leads their “Enabling Environments” project.

Nick Benefield; Senior policy advisor for Department of Health and Justice

Rai Waddingham; Writer, practitioner and activist. Currently studying a PhD in Survivor Knowledge at Nottingham Trent University; Chair of the English National Hearing Voices Network and a Trustee of Intervoice. She is currently engaged in training people in Open Dialogue, an ethical community response to mental health and social crises, and embedding this within the NHS in the UK and in systems abroad.

Event 3

Design & Environment for Mental Wellness 

In this final round table of the LFA series, we imagined a regenerative approach to mental health: what does it take to build relationships and environments that heal rather than harm - at national and local scale - for those providing care, for those being cared for, and for all members of communities.

We asked: What part does design of cities, buildings and landscapes play in supporting individual and collective wellbeing? How the built environment can lead to powering a shift in values towards being more, rather than having more? And how living and healing in places which enrich rather than ignore environments can make us healthier and happier at a personal, local and national level?

Speakers:

CHAIR: Timothy Makower, Makower Architects

Chris Shaw; Architect MAP (Medical Architecture)

John Whitehead; Director of the Bottega Project

Dr Annja Neumann; Cross-disciplinary Artist-Researcher at the University of Cambridge, Senior Research Fellow of Magdalene College and Research Consultant in Creative Strategy & Policy

Rafael Marks; Principle of Perkins & Will