Jim Hume is Director of Public Affairs and Communications at the mental health charity Change Mental Health.

At Change Mental Health, Jim set up and runs the National Rural Mental Health Forum, which has a wide membership of around 300 organisations from the third, public and private sectors all collaborating to tackle mental health, illness and wellbeing.

Jim is currently the Chairman of The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, a trustee of Feniks (Polish and Eastern European community support charity) and a Board member of the Scottish Government’s National Care Service Advisory Board. He recently served six years on the Board of the higher education and research Institute Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).

He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, 2007 to 2016, where he was a health spokesperson and successfully brought into legislation his own Member’s Bill, now Act, protecting children from smoking in cars. He was also involved in several delegations to Palestine and Ukraine re human rights and devolving political power, successfully led the campaign to stop the selling off of Scotland’s forest estate, held the first mental health summit in the Scottish Parliament and led the campaign to stop the closure of six community hospitals in south Scotland.

Jim has experience in many Boards, including the National Farmers Union of Scotland (NFUS), Scottish Enterprise Borders, founding Director of SEBSED (The South of Scotland Loan Fund Scheme), Borders Forest Trust, Foundation for Rural Sustainability, South Scotland’s Forestry Commision Forum, The Tweed Forum and the Broomhouse Centre. He organised support for the farming community in the Foot and Mouth Crisis of 2001, during one of his terms with the NFUS.

Jim is from a farming family and started his career on the hill farm in the Scottish Borders, farming sheep and cattle in the Yarrow Valley, where his sons still farm. The farm diversified and his daughter helps manage the family restaurant near Selkirk. He enjoys his family and six grandkids plus his hobbies of the garden, cycling, amateur radio and spending time with precious friends. He has also been known to pick up the paint brush and dabble in art.