Chris Underhill
Chris Underhill MBE works as a mentor and is a social entrepreneur in the field of quality of life, and mental health in the community. Drawing on his lived experience as a child, he has spent many years “hands-on” in the field and sets great store by his work in interpersonal relations. Chris has developed a number of social enterprises, for example Thrive, an organisation working in gardening, disability and community (www.thrive.org.uk) and ADD International (www.add.org.uk), working in the developing world with disabled people creating systems of representation, advocacy and policy development. He has built several organisations in the field of global mental health, for example BasicNeeds (BasicNeeds) which promotes the Model for Mental Health and Development created by Chris in 2000. There are now a number of BasicNeeds organisations (e.g. Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam) which continue to spread his important message. Chris runs his own mentoring practice called Mentor Services (www.mentorservices.org.uk) and presents on health, quality of life, mental health and resilience. Chris is co-founder of a new organisation benefitting social entrepreneurs: The Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs (www.elderscouncil.net). He is a Skoll Foundation awardee in Social Entrepreneurship, an awardee in Social Entrepreneurship of the Schwab Foundation, and a Senior Fellow of Ashoka and has been honoured with an MBE by HRH the Queen for his work in disability.
