The Royal College of Psychiatrists is delighted to announce that the Birmingham poet, David Hart, will be working as the poet in residence over the next year in South Birmingham Mental Health Trust, which is the largest NHS trust providing care for people with mental illness in the West Midlands. The project is being managed by Professor Femi Oyebode, who is the Medical Director and a well-known poet in his own right, acting as Literature Advisor to West Midlands Arts.

This unique and innovative residency project has been funded by the Arts Council of England through West Midlands Arts as one of the ‘a thousand artists in a thousand places’ Year of the Artist awards, with arts lottery money. It is the first of many initiatives planned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists over the next 2 years to coincide with its new initiative, ‘2001: A Mind Odyssey’ (see below).

Initially, David Hart will be working 1 day a week within the older adults' psychiatry services, with continuing care and day patients and their relatives. In the future he will work in other departments in the trust.

David Hart is a well-known poet. He has previous experience of working within the health arena, having been involved with general practice and in running poetry workshops for psychotherapists and people with mental health problems. He has also participated in the Arts Week at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham and was a poet in residence at Worcester Cathedral. Among his publications is a book of poems Setting the Poem to Words (Reference HartHart, 1998).