Lisa Androulidakis (she/her)

My passion lies in designing programmes that improve collaboration between charities and healthcare providers. It's all about finding what works and why - measuring and identifying what's really effective.

My background…

I’ve worked across non-profit and charitable sectors for almost 16 years, in areas such as homelessness, housing, HIV, addiction, disability and more. Much of the work in these sectors really comes down to supporting and improving people’s mental health. In the last 10 years I’ve worked in leadership roles, specifically within mental health and addiction, collaborating with others to design innovative new programmes or to improve existing ones.

I’m most proud of building the largest, and scaling the Recovery College across Canada, tailoring a UK approach to make them to be open-access to any Canadian needing mental health support. It was my job to source funding and then plan strategy, implementation and delivery, as well as measuring the results and impact. This led to a whole new arm of the Canadian Mental Health Association, which I then rolled out nationwide.

How I can help…

Getting to the crux of what people really need is key. I focus on what works and why, identifying the programmes and services that achieve results by measuring them. This ultimately helps organisations understand what to put more time, energy and investment into.

Charities have an ability to innovate and shake things up but often they don’t realise how much change they can affect. I help charities to be bolder and braver, to think about why they’re doing certain things and what they’re trying to impact. I bring new ideas and innovations, working alongside communities, to share and build what is really wanted and needed.

Having the right tools to go about measuring results is essential. Asking questions such as, what impact is this having at a community and individual level? What can you measure that’s improving for people? Why is that happening and how can we replicate it? What does good mental health actually mean?

Individual outcomes are great but community outcomes are even better. That’s real impact, and I can measure this in interesting, interactive ways (rather than endless, dull surveys). Most importantly, I will sit down, work with you and feel like a part of your team, to make sure what we build lasts and is impactful long after I leave.

The future of mental health care…

I want to be part of creating more connected people within thriving communities. Thriving communities means all types of communities, such as workplaces, friendship groups, your local gym, coffee shop, anywhere that you connect. Community is multiple places, it’s not just one thing. In an ideal world everyone would have lots of these communities to thrive in.

I’m passionate about giving people a platform to talk about their own experiences, too. We have to think differently about what mental health can look like, with that voice of personal experience driving how services are designed. Then use that evidence to invest wisely and appropriately into the supports that really work.

MA Sociology, PGDip Law