DESIGN IN MENTAL HEALTH 2022 KEYNOTES


Overcoming the barriers to equal access for all


Giving a first day keynote presentation at June’s Design in Mental Health 2022 conference, Sarah Hughes, CEO of the Centre for Mental Health, discussed what she argued were some of the key priorities for designing a mental health system that offered equality of access to all, and some of the major barriers that need overcoming to achieve this.


Speaking in an early afternoon conference slot on 8 June at DiMH 2022 – which was held at the Coventry Building Society Arena from 8-9 June this year – Sarah Hughes was introduced to the audience by Chair Emeritus of the Network, Jenny Gill, as ‘a leader in global health, gender equality, and justice, who has been involved in mental health and criminal justice for 30 years’. Having originally trained as a social worker, she continued to develop her skills and knowledge, and subsequently managed a range of ‘innovative’ community and secure services. Currently undertaking a professional doctorate with the Tavistock and Portman Centre, studying ‘Women, Resilience, & Leadership’, she led the research and evaluation of the ‘pioneering’ ‘First Night in Custody’ project in Holloway Prison, which subsequently saw the roll- out of the principles across the prison estate.


Independent ‘think-tank’ As Chief Executive of the Centre for Mental Health, an independent, not- for-profit ‘think-tank’ ‘dedicated to eradicating mental health inequalities and fighting injustice by changing policy and practice’, Sarah Hughes works with the UK government and high-profile organisations


on mental health policy and practice. She holds trustee and board positions for organisations including the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership, Agenda Alliance (for Women & Girls at Risk), the Association of Mental Health Providers, the Football Association, and City Mental Health Alliance. As part of her introduction, Jenny Gill added: “She is also a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts, Salzburg Global, Zinc Academy, and The Mental Health Collective, and finds time to write regular ‘blogs’ on mental health and wellbeing. Sarah is passionate about mental health, and believes equality can be achieved by drawing on the extraordinary evidence we already have about what works, and from people’s lived experience. It’s my honour and privilege to introduce to you Sarah Hughes, Chief Executive of the Centre for Mental Health.”


Mental health equality in context Sarah Hughes confirmed that she planned to discuss mental health and mental health equality, ‘in the context of this environment, i.e. design in mental health’. She told delegates: “While I don’t know very much about architecture, or the logistics of environments, I do know about equality and mental health.” Coming


together with those two perspectives, she said she hoped to offer attendees ‘some insights’ they could take into their respective places. “I always stress – wherever and whenever I speak anywhere in the world,” she said, “that although we don’t all have mental illness, we all have mental health. About one in four adults, and one in six children, however, have a mental health challenge, and there’s a 75 per cent lifetime risk that you will experience a mental health challenge. It might not be you today, but it’s possibly you tomorrow, which sounds very frightening, but that’s the truth in which we exist in relation to mental illness.” There was, of course, she noted, a


‘spectrum’ of mental health, which some individuals ‘moved up and down’ every day, ‘sometimes 2-3 times a day’ – life events clearly having a massive impact ‘on where we might be’.


Key determinants Turning to the ‘determinants’ of mental health, and among the more protective factors in enabling good mental health were ‘secure attachments, positive parenting, secure housing, economic security, positive school experience, and procedural justice, for example at work, in your communities, and in your homes’.


This conference slide highlighted some of the key societal and health- related factors that increase the risk of poor mental health.


THE NETWORK | AUGUST 2022 35


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