We will greatly miss our dear colleague and friend Billy Hardy. He died peacefully surrounded and loved by family and friends. We are bereft, but our lives are enriched and our hearts the fuller for having known, worked and conversed with him. 

Billy remained active, future-oriented and good humoured in his final months. He continued to work hard to imagine with others a legacy which is the Centre for Systemic Studies. 

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Billy began his career as a mental health nurse in Glasgow. He moved to Guernsey in 1982 where he worked as a mental health nurse before he came to live in Wales in 1984. He worked in Barry and as a mental health nurse and as a manager. He trained at the Family Institute in the 1990s while teaching at Swansea University on the nursing programmes there. He joined The Family Institute team in 1999 and played a key role, shortly afterwards, in negotiating the successful move from being a Bernardo’s project to becoming part of The University of Glamorgan in 2000 (later to become the University of South Wales). 

 

Over the next 20 years Billy helped to develop, teach on and evolve the suite of courses at The Family Institute. He was involved with many other projects and organisations during his time there - locally, nationally and internationally and many projects and organisations benefitted from his wisdom and his passion for ‘de-pathologising’ for community-based practices and relational learning contexts. He embodied the ethos of social learning. He was an inspirational consultant, supervisor, teacher and trainer, in multiple contexts.   
 

In 2020 The Family Institute separated from the University and become a project within the newly formed Centre for Systemic Studies - Billy’s brainchild. His hope for the Centre (CSS) - shared by his colleagues - was that it would continue to “home” The Family Institute and grow outwards to inspire and support other community projects. Billy and Leah set up CSS as a Community Interest Company (not for profit) for that reason. 

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Billy will be remembered by many people as a champion of relational practices and an advocate for the impact that this way of being can have on mental health and wellbeing. He sometimes referred to himself as a “Systemic Firestarter”- who loved to create and sustain sparks of imagination in others. He is likely to be remembered as someone who believed in the potential of people to be the best of themselves. He was an incredible teacher, mentor and therapist. His warmth, creativity and good humour was infectious. He is rightly credited with transforming the lives of many. We miss him deeply - and will continue to develop his legacy. 

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Read Billy's poem titled In The Clearing as featured on the Murmurations online journal and below is a podcast series where Billy and Keiran are in conversation.