A welcome from our Chair, Anne-Louise Clark and CEO, Ewan Hilton

Dear applicant

We are delighted that you are interested in the role of Trustee with
Platfform. If you feel a connection to our vision, mission and values,
and see this as an opportunity to contribute to the great governance
of a great (we would say that) organisation, then we hope that the
information you find in this pack inspires you to apply for the role.

Nearly every Trustee recruitment pack that we have ever read starts with
an opening line similar to ‘you would be joining at an exciting time / a
challenging time / a time of change and opportunity’. Well, if you were to
join the Board of Trustees at Platfform it would be all those things.

Our work is expanding out of Wales and across the UK. Whilst our
operating environment is indeed challenging, at Platfform we see
challenge as an opportunity. An opportunity to think differently,
do differently, to challenge the status quo and to offer new ways of
thinking about how our systems really work, or don’t work, for the
people they are there to help.

How we understand and respond to emotional distress needs to
evolve, it needs to be rooted in the social determinants of health
and mental health, and be seen through a human rights and social
justice lens. We believe strongly that our current mental health
systems are broken, cause harm, and at their worst, death.

We know that we are more likely to experience mental health
challenges and engage with the mental health system, or other
public health and criminal justice systems, if we have experienced
trauma, poverty, inequality. ‘Mental illness’ is not equally distributed,
and all the evidence tells us this. Mental health is a social justice
issue and at Platfform, a core part of our mission is to address the
root causes of poor mental health. As Trustees our role is to ensure
everything we do is in pursuit of this mission.

We support over seventeen thousand people a year, we work across
the age range, with children, young people, families and single
adults, we train and support professionals and we provide support
to employers. We work closely with the UK and Welsh Governments,
third sector partners and the wider public sector system to affect
transformation of our helping systems and our ambition is to grow
the scale and impact of our work. For us it is all about relationships,
collaboration and co-production.

As we grow, our governance needs to keep pace, we need to
ensure we thrive now and are fit for the future. We need to be
representative of the geographies and communities that we serve.
As we stretch our operating model, our governance arrangements
will evolve so that they continue to add value across all areas of
Platfform’s work.

Moving into the next phase of our growth and development, we are
looking for Trustees who are both passionate about our purpose,
and who bring experience of governance and/or strategic leadership
relevant to our work. We are keen to meet people who have experience
of the mental health system, of social justice related advocacy and
public affairs, philanthropy, social policy and research, income
generation, digital transformation and of organisational design and
leadership development.

We are looking for people to join our Board of Trustees who have
the desire and experience to help us continue to ensure our
governance is a facilitator of organisational success, that work
closely and collaboratively with our executive team and always have
their eye on our vision, mission, values and strategy, and the future.
If this could be you, we would really love to hear from you. You can
find all the detail on how to apply in this pack. If you would like an
informal chat, we would both be happy to speak to you.

Thank you again for taking an interest in or work. All the best.

Anne-Louise Clark, Chair of Board of Trustees and Ewan Hilton, CEO