The online book launch of "Design for dementia, mental health and wellbeing: Co-design, Interventions and Policy" was held on 25 September 2024. The book explores the role of design in supporting mental health and wellbeing for people living with dementia, mental illness and neurodiverse conditions. It emphasises the need to recognise design as a powerful means for supporting people in their everyday lives at home, in the community with preventive and well-being-focused strategies. The launch offered an inspiring evening of bite-size presentations and discussions by some of the book’s editors and contributors about its key topics. The evening was chaired by Dr Anna Bergqvist from Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). To begin, Professor Rachel Cooper, OBE, Series Editor of the Design for Social Responsibilities Series, of which the book is a part, spoke about the book in the context of the series. Prof. Cooper explained that the series was developed to showcase the application and benefit of design in different areas.
The evening further followed the structure of the book with its three parts: co-design, interventions and policy. Each part was introduced by one of the editors, followed by vivid presentations by some of the contributors. The first part on co-design was introduced by Professor Kristina Niedderer, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), followed by contributors Dr Rachel Losada, INTRAS (Spain), Dr Leigh-Anne Hepburn, University of Sydney (Australia), and Dr Laura Malinin, Nancy Richardson Design Center, Colorado State University (USA). They explored themes of ethics, citizenship, power relationships and empowerment in co-design, noting the importance for involving people with lived experience at all stages of the process to provide an expert critical voice to counterbalance the clinical voice.
The second part, on interventions, was introduced by Professor Geke Ludden, University of Twente, The Netherlands, followed by Dr Jodi Sturge, University of Twente (Netherlands), and Dr Christian Wölfel, Technische Universität Dresden (Germany). It considered the culturally and value sensitive adaptation of design interventions and their applications. Dr Sturge provided an example with the comparison of dementia villages in the Netherlands and in Canada, and the differences in adapting this model to the two locations due to the need to cater for different national requirements and experiences.
The third part, on policy was introduced by Professor Tom Dening, Nottingham University (UK), followed by reflections by Dr Andy Bell, Centre for Mental Health, Dr Camilla Buchanan, PolicyLab (UK), Dr Elena Bellini, Duit (Italy). The discussion reflected on policy and related standards in and for design and mental health. It explored the design of policy, policy and regulations for design as well as the influence of design on shaping policy. Being experienced designers and clinicians, the contributors to the book emphasised how design can be a collaborative, creative process as well as an outcome of this process. Speakers discussed different issues raised in the book and their relevance to advancing current policy and provision of mental health and wellbeing services internationally.