A New Era: Blue to Green
Next week we are going to be sharing lots of our research, insights and tools as we host our very first ‘Inclusive Digital Transformation’ week. Look out for our daily blogs and fireside chats. You will get to meet some of the superstars I work with and I hope find some of what we share useful and interesting for your own work.
Looking back over the last two years, it has been quite a journey at Thrive by Design. We have worked across the country and met many like-minded people who are all determined to ensure the digital transformation of health and care does not result in a two-tiered system leaving people who most need services behind. I really hope more people are now considering how they might ensure we do not compound pre-existing health inequalities with digital transformation, how they might co-design digital transformation with people whose voice is seldom heard, and how they might ensure that at least 10% of the digital transformation budget is top sliced for inclusion.
I would like to say thank you once again to all of the people who have joined forces with us on our mission, commissioners, partners, policy makers and friends.
Internally, our team has grown stronger together. Using that moment of adversity back in March 2020 to dig deep and work out what we wanted to achieve together turned out to be an opportunity to develop a clear mission for how we could make a positive difference. I feel privileged to have led this talented and determined team through the last two challenging years, and with a new brand, and some fantastic new people joining us, it is time to step into a new era.
Manor Lodge Meadows at The Green Estate
I am delighted to formally announce that from 1 April 2022, I will be handing over the reins to one of the most experienced inclusive co-designers in health and care in the country. I am really excited to see what these wonderful people get up to with the brilliant Tim Brazier in the driving seat, and Tim will tell you more in his forthcoming blog.
I will still be working with the Thrive by Design team for one day a week as a strategic associate director for as long as I am useful, but for the rest of the week I am also beginning a new era.
At the last Leeds Digital Festival we hosted a really informative session asking ‘Is Covid-19 the warm up act?’ I believe the global pandemic is an integral part of a wider social and environmental crisis we are facing and that if we don’t act now, inequalities will be further exacerbated. This is a public health crisis and as someone who started out life as an environmental health officer I am keen to play my part in building social and environmental adaptation and resilience.
It is for this reason I am taking up the role of Chief Executive Officer for The Green Estate (sometimes known informally as the Northern Flowerhouse), it is a large social enterprise focused on ‘creating better places to live with nature at their heart’. I will be leading an incredible community of landscape designers, meadow makers, park and heritage stewards, green recyclers, venue organisers and more who all care about social and environmental sustainability. My job will be to build on their 20 plus years of experience and success to create a centre of excellence which helps to build greater adaptation and resilience and enable others including the NHS to make their ‘estate’ green too!
So if you are in Sheffield and fancy a cuppa, come and join me at the Rhubarb Shed, or for a wander around Manor Park (a unique urban park with a sustainable drainage system) or a visit to the infamous Manor Lodge (where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned and you can now get married). Don’t forget to look out for their meadows at the Olympic Park in London and during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee too.
A heartfelt thank you to the wonderful good humans at Thrive by Design and Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust including Dawn Hanwell, Gerard Enright and Sara Munro and our wise associates especially Anne Cooper and Helen Bradburn for an amazing and fulfilling two years.
Team, I really am going to miss your kindness, talent, dedication and humour but I am so excited to watch your next chapter unfold!
Roz x
My new email will be roz.davies@greenestate.org or you can catch me on twitter @roz_davies