Presented at the Inpatient & Community Forum and Quality Improvement Forum, Sheffield SHSC. "Perspective from the Frontline" and "Our Experience"' in "Understanding Mental Health Services: Dancing with Complex Systems".

1. What can
Mental Health systems
learn from Dance?

2. The System Dance
• “A defining property of human systems is
complexity: because of the sheer number of
relationships and feedback loops among their
many elements, they cannot be reduced to
simple chains of cause and effect.”
How Change Happens, Green
• “The future is a dance between patterns and
events” Boulton, Allen, Bowman, Embracing Complexity

3. Dance and Leadership Skills
• Focus
• Patience
• Passion
• Perseverance
• Discipline
• Goal orientation
• Competitiveness
Lisa Rabasca Roepe (2016)
Ability to
• Multi-task
• Deal with different
people
• Get things done
• Be present
• Stay on your feet
• Let others shine
Lisa Rabasca Roepe (2016)

4. Teamwork in a Dance Company
• “Sophisticated
machine” (backstage,
on stage)
• Recognising that
everyone plays a role
(dancers, staff
members)
• Practicing and
reflecting
Ballet BC, Vancouver
• Communicating
(giving everyone
information about
decisions made)
• Achieving through
motivation and
empowerment, not
though fear
• Nurturing each
other’s potential
Ballet BC, Vancouver

5. Safe Practice – Prevention
• Evaluate the
environment
• Evaluate risk
• Develop
responsibility and
self-discipline
• Look after your
physical and mental
health
Edel Quin, Sonia Rafferty and Charlotte Tomlinson
(2015)
• Give appropriate
feedback
• Be able to trust
• Avoid (physical and
psychological) injury
• Rest and recover
Edel Quin, Sonia Rafferty and Charlotte Tomlinson
(2015)

6. Improving the System
• Clear aims
• Understanding norms and assumptions
• Smart data
• Intelligent kindness
• Relationships important
• Resources matter but how managed vital
• Interrelationships
• Understand where power is
• Collaboration

7. Understanding Mental Health Services:
Dancing with Complex Systems
Presented at the
INPATIENT & COMMUNITY FORUM
Perspective from the Frontline
Dr Nicoletta P. Lekka, Consultant Psychiatrist
Sheffield, 09 January 2017
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT FORUM
Our Experience
Richard Bulmer, Associate Director
Dr Nicoletta P. Lekka, Consultant Psychiatrist
Lisa Johnson, Deputy Director
Sheffield, 20 June 2018