DIMHN WORKSTREAMS
Plenty to report despite a disrupted year
Alongside marking the retirement of Jenny Gill as DiMHN Chair, and her succession by Philip Ross (see page 8), the Design in Mental Health Network’s 2020 AGM, held ‘virtually’ on 4 November, saw reports presented by each Workstream’s lead on its activities over a busy, but heavily disrupted, previous year. As The Network’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports, there were, however, a number of highlights even in a difficult year, and – as the reports underlined – plenty of exciting activity planned for 2021 and beyond.
As the DiMHN’s outgoing Chair, Jenny Gill gave the opening report, emphasising that, like many other UK businesses and organisations, the Network had had to ‘adapt and change’ over a challenging last eight months, with many of its planned activities impacted by the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the year’s highlights, she noted, had been the publication of the ‘Informed Choices’ product testing guidance jointly developed with the BRE (see The Network – July 2020 and pages 10-14 of this issue), on which she congratulated Philip Ross and his team for their hard work, in conjunction with the BRE, to bring ‘this important initiative’ to fruition.
The DiMHN Board had held two meetings in London and Leeds prior to lockdown, and a further four ‘virtual’ meetings leading up to the 2020 AGM, with an average 88 per cent attendance rate. Noting her decision to retire from the Board at the meeting’s conclusion, Jenny Gill recalled that she had been involved with the Network ‘since the very beginning’ in 2005, ‘when about half a dozen of us met in a very small office at UCLan’. Her ‘more active involvement’ began in 2011, on being asked to lead on the Better Bedroom initiative, and from there she had joined the ‘evolving’ Board, becoming Chair in 2013. It had been ‘an exciting, rewarding, and challenging seven years’, and she was confident that the Network would ‘continue to flourish, and make a difference’. She thanked a number of individuals for the support they had shown both to the Network, and to her personally, singling out the DiMHN’s members, the organisation’s President, Joe Forster, and her Board colleagues. She concluded: “Subject to the pandemic, I will see you all at the conference in June 2021; until then, I wish you good luck, and carry on the good work.”
Loss of main income stream Next, before the presentation of the individual Workstream reports, the Network’s Treasurer, Phil Barsby of Intastop, discussed the last year’s financial
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DiMHN Chair, Jenny Gill, pictured alongside former Treasurer, Clive Stone, at the 2019 AGM, stepped down at the 2020 ‘virtual’ AGM. She noted that the Network had had to ‘adapt and change’ over a challenging past eight months. In her Conference & Exhibition Workstream report, she explained that the 2021 DiMH annual conference and exhibition would take place from 9-10 June 2021 at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena.
Jenny Gill had significant involvement in the Better Bedroom initiative to improve inpatient bedrooms earlier in her time with the DiMHN.
JANUARY 2021 | THE NETWORK
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