Senior Human Rights Officer
Annie Smith
Annie joined BIHR in 2021 as a Human Rights Officer, and in 2023 she rejoined the organisation as a Senior Human Rights Officer.
Annie is an experienced social worker, specialising in mental capacity practice and community mental health support. She also leads on workshop delivery on the Community Led Support programme at the National Development Team for Inclusion, a social change organisation supporting practice change to improve social care, health, and community support across the UK.
What Annie brings to BIHR
- Practical experience of social work, and an understanding of the health and social care sector more generally.
- Extensive experience designing and delivering learning and change programmes to support the application of health, social care, and human rights law in everyday practice.
- Expertise in health and social care legislation and how this interacts with human rights law.
- Commitment to translating complex legal ideas into accessible language and formats, with a particular focus on developing Easy Read resources.
Annie previously worked as an Advanced Practitioner and Best Interests Assessor in a Mental Capacity Act Service at a local authority. This involved working alongside people who may have difficulty making decisions about their lives, striving to lessen restrictions on people’s human rights, and working with the Court of Protection. Annie also delivered training on the Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards in the local district, supporting health and social care staff to use the law in their work.
Annie holds an MA in Social Work with a focus on adult mental health, and a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford.
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