NSUN membership is open to individuals with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress, or trauma as well as user-led groups.
You can also sign up as an NSUN supporter if you want to stay up to date with and support NSUN’s work but do not meet the criteria for full membership, or if you are a member but would also like to receive a semi-regular newsletter of key updates, and information on how to support NSUN.
Sign up with your chosen category of membership (or as a supporter) below. Signing up is completely free, however, if you’d like to support us by making a donation, you can do so here.
NSUN membership provides:
- A curated weekly e-bulletin bringing together the latest news, events, blogs and articles, paid opportunities for involvement and influencing, recruitment, and funding opportunities in the lived experience mental health space
- Support, resources and capacity-building for new and existing user-led initiatives and groups, including exclusive access to small grants programmes
- Collective responses to policy developments and consultations
- Access to collaborative spaces and learning sessions to share knowledge and build momentum and long-term sustainability for lived experience mental health work
- A platform and regular opportunities to pitch blogs, articles, and book reviews for the NSUN Members’ Blog
- Signposting to other organisations that can provide help, support, and advice
- Access to a unique network of 5,000+ individuals, user-led groups and communities working to shift power and resource in mental health
Sign up as a member or supporter
Please select your category below: you can sign up as either an individual or user-led group member. Alternatively (or in addition), you can join the network as a supporter.
Please read before signing up:
Once you’ve signed up, you’ll get a confirmation email immediately, then start to receive weekly bulletins (plus other very occasional emails). Check your spam/junk folder if you don’t receive the confirmation email. If it went to spam, please add info@nsun.org.uk to your safe senders/address book. If it’s not in spam, please re-submit a sign up form & ensure the email address is correct. If you don’t start to get the Monday bulletins, email info@nsun.org.uk.
Email us if you previously received NSUN emails but no longer do (e.g. you unsubscribed in the past). As well as submitting a new membership sign up form (below), we will also need to send you a short Mailchimp re-subscription form to complete.
1. Individual member
This category of membership is for anyone with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress, and/or trauma. By joining you will become part of the network and receive the weekly members’ bulletin full of news and opportunities. As a member you can vote in our Annual General Meetings (AGMs).
“I use NSUN as a sort of central hub to keep up to date with a variety of lived experience outlets, individuals, and collectives. I respect that NSUN presents the political dimension of “mental health” as a category – and how it relates to a wide range of issues such as austerity, disability, climate change, racism…”
“By far leading on consistently and coherently bringing a disparate community together through the bulletin alone. A way to get the feeling of a collective experience through the variety of information and a sense of something big going on…”
Feedback from NSUN members
2. User-led group member
Choose this category if you represent a user-led grassroots or community group or organisation working in and around mental health and wish to sign it up as a member. By joining, your group will become part of the network, which includes other user-led groups, and can access support for furthering your user-led initiative. You will receive our weekly members’ bulletin full of news and opportunities, and occasionally other communications about topics relevant to user-led groups. As a member, you can vote in our AGMs.
If there are multiple people in your group who want to become NSUN members and get updates from us, they can also sign up personally using the “individual member” sign up form above.
Definition: “user-led groups” means groups run “by and for” people with shared identities or experiences. What “user-led” looks like can vary. If the majority of the people involved in running your group have lived experience of mental ill-health, distress or trauma, or otherwise share an identity with those you run the group for or with, you can sign up as a user-led group member of NSUN. If this is not the case, you can still sign up as an NSUN supporter (below).
“NSUN has helped me feel part of a movement, which is vital for sustaining myself and the group as we try to bring about change and serve our community.“
“I have connected with other groups and made new connections that have had a positive impact on our organisation.”
Feedback from NSUN user-led group members
3. Supporter
This option is for people who are interested in NSUN’s work but who do not have personal lived experience of mental ill-health, distress and/or trauma, as well as representatives of groups and organisations that are not user-led (such as charities, higher education institutions and corporate organisations).
Full membership is reserved for individuals with lived experience and user-led groups, therefore supporters do not having voting rights at the AGM, but will be kept up to date with our work through a newsletter (once every two months), and you can also opt in to receive information on how to support NSUN’s work, including fundraising emails.
Full members can also sign up to the supporter mailing list by completing the form below if you want to receive information on how to support us and get key updates, sent in a newsletter every two months, on top of your membership communications.
“The insightfulness and precision with which articles and responses to policy are written helps me focus my attention on important current affairs and the impact they have on those in mental health crises.“