The Mental Health Providers Forum brings together voluntary sector service providers to improve services for people with mental health needs. We aim to influence national and regional mental health strategies and share information and experience among our members. How to join.

The Founder members, Chief Executives of 13 mental health provider charities, had been meeting since 2001. The Forum commissioned a study in 2002, the Compass report, which estimated current voluntary sector provision of mental health services at 10% of statutory provision, and recommended that we raise the profile and credibility of voluntary sector providers to government and purchasers.

In 2004, we jointly published with the National Institute for Mental Health England 'Mapping Clinical Governance in Voluntary Sector Organisations'.

The Forum registered as a company in August 2005 and was launched in November 2005 at the 'Making Partnerships Work' conference.

In December 2005, Judy Weleminsky was appointed as the first Chief Executive. Judy has previously been Chief Executive of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (now Rethink) and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

New members were accepted from December 2005 and we doubled our membership to 26 members in our first eight months.

Our Values

A society where everyone with mental health concerns has the right to get the support they need from a wide range of providers, implementing demonstrable values which include:

• respecting service user perspectives, empowerment and choices
• believing in and supporting recovery and social inclusion
• commitment to collaboration, sharing and partnership
• commitment to service excellence, innovation, evidence based practice and continuous improvement
• developing and promoting the unique value based contribution of the voluntary sector

Our Strategic Objectives to 2010

• To challenge, shape and expand the market in line with users’ demand and our core values
• To articulate and promote users’ concerns about their experience of mental health services
• To produce evidence to support radical change in the system for delivering mental health services
• To drive the development of outcomes focused commissioning
• To strengthen the capacity of the sector and individual organisations to improve service provision
• To become a more diverse network of providers which is recognised as the voice of the voluntary mental health sector