Highly Commended, Buckinghamshire Mind

Buckinghamshire Mind looked at its leadership structure to consolidate the growth and adaptations it had during the COVID lockdown period, and set out a clear way forward in its new strategic development. This incorporated widespread consultation to drive continuous improvements through their golden threads; agile, inclusive and informed. The senior management team was restructured to build capacity, and the organisation undertook a governance review and trustee audit. This laid the foundation for increasing the services provided, both in number and geographically.

During the strategy consultation they reached out to volunteers and service users through formal consultation as well as group discussions and one to ones. People with lived experience were also involved via a “Champion the Change” campaign, the initiative Buckinghamshire Mind created to adapt to the end of the Time to Change campaign funding.

The organisation has focused on developing the coaching and empowering style across all management levels. Managers, staff and services users shared multiple examples of progression: from service user to volunteer or staff member; frontline staff changing service or locality or progressing to management roles.

Buckinghamshire Mind now has the capacity to expand its development work. This includes areas such as a Data Management, recruiting a team member to lead on Equality and Diversity, adopting an organisation- wide approach to service design based in Lived Experience Leadership and the implementation of a Quality Framework, grounded in the standards of the Mind Quality Mark.

The MQM review team recognised that the consultative and inclusive leadership style has been the most significant success factor in this journey of growth and change for Buckinghamshire Mind. The organisation talks of this style being rooted in emotional intelligence, mutual respect, care and humility.