Briefing Brilliance: Better Briefs for Better Mental Health Environments
Design in Mental Health Network & Arcadis Webinar
Free Lunch & Learn Webinar
How can good design improve safety, support recovery, and shape better mental health care?
📅 Tuesday 12th May 2026 | 🕛 12:30 – 13:30 BST | 💻 Online (Teams)
Why Briefing Matters in Mental Healthcare
A well-crafted brief is one of the most powerful tools in shaping mental health environments.
Done well, it aligns stakeholders, reduces costly redesign, and ensures that spaces genuinely support recovery, dignity, and wellbeing. Done poorly, it can lead to missed opportunities, wasted resources, and environments that fall short of the needs they are meant to serve.
At the Design in Mental Health Network, we believe that better briefs lead to better outcomes for people, for services, and for the public purse.
This 60-minute Lunch & Learn webinar explores how to strengthen briefing in practice, with a particular focus on the role of personas, stakeholder insight, and real-world application.
What You’ll Gain
- Practical approaches to creating clearer, more effective briefs for mental health environments
- Insight into how personas can sharpen decision-making and strengthen outcomes
- Understanding of how better briefing reduces risk, saves time and money, and builds trust
- Real-world examples and case studies demonstrating what happens when briefing is done well
- Tools and techniques you can apply immediately in your own projects
What the Webinar Will Cover
Speakers & Topics
Karen Flatt - Architect, Associate Principal, Mental Health Lead, Arcadis
Karen will explore the fundamentals of effective briefing, what good looks like, where it often goes wrong, and how stronger briefs can improve project momentum. She will also share practical insight into scenario planning and “a day in the life” approaches.
Alice Green - Architect, Associate Principal, Arcadis
Alice will focus on personas in practice, how to use them quickly and meaningfully, avoid common pitfalls, and apply them across diverse stakeholder groups to improve clarity and impact.
Con McGarry - Solution Lead | Digital x Healthcare, Arcadis
Con will present case study insights, including learning from international approaches, demonstrating how technology and human-centred design can come together to improve outcomes.
Host: Charlotte Burrows - CEO, Design in Mental Health Network
Charlotte will chair the session, framing the conversation and drawing out key insights, with live Q&A and audience discussion throughout.
What We’ll Cover
- Why briefing is a critical phase in mental health design
- The role of personas in creating empathetic, intelligent briefs
- How poor briefs arise, and how to avoid them
- The value of stakeholder engagement and “day in the life” thinking
- Case study insights from UK and international practice
- How better briefing supports efficiency, alignment and better use of public money
Who Should Attend
This session is designed for professionals shaping health and care environments, including:
- NHS Estates, Capital Projects and Mental Health Teams
- Integrated Care Systems (ICS) and Local Authority professionals
- Architects, designers, and infrastructure specialists
- Co-production and engagement leads
- People with lived experience involved in design processes
- Policymakers, researchers, and commissioners
Whether you are working at a strategic level or delivering projects on the ground, this session will support more confident, informed, and human-centred decision-making.
Register Now
Join us to explore how better briefing can unlock better mental health environments.
📅 Date: Tuesday 12th May 2026
🕛 Time: 12:30 – 13:30 BST
💻 Location: Online (Teams)
🎟️ Cost: Free
From Webinar to Workshop: Continuing the Conversation
For those looking to take this thinking further, speakers Karen Flatt, Alice Green and Con McGarry from Arcadis will also be delivering an interactive session at the Design in Mental Health Conference & Exhibition in June 2026, held in Coventry.
Design Thinking Workshop: Enhancing the Mental Health Patient Journey
📅 3rd June 2026 | 🕝 14:30
This hands-on workshop will build on the themes introduced in the webinar, offering a deeper dive into how design thinking, personas, and stakeholder insight can be applied in practice to improve patient journeys and outcomes.
Please note: attendance at the workshop requires a conference ticket. Free tickets are available to NHS and public-sector delegates.
The webinar provides an accessible introduction to these ideas, with the conference session offering an opportunity to explore them in more depth, alongside peers from across the sector.