About the project
The media’s engagement with people with lived experience of mental ill-health, trauma and distress as spokespeople has the potential to be unethical. It may be approached in a sensationalist, tokenistic or extractive way. However, many people do feel drawn to sharing their experiences with the media and using the platform as an opportunity to change or draw attention to a particular issue.
With the aim of supporting this goal and improving the process, we have decided to develop guidelines for what to think about before or while taking part in media/press work. To that end we are conducting a three-stage research project: a survey, a series of focus groups and the writing of a report and guidelines for the media, and those engaging with it.
The first part of this research project is a 10-minute survey, which closes for submissions on Monday 14th April at 9am. Once you have completed the survey you can enter into a prize draw for one of five £20 Love2Shop vouchers.
Who can take part?
Please only take part in this survey if you have lived experience of mental ill-health, distress, or trauma. We are interested in hearing from people who have experience of doing media/press work, but you do not need to have experience of engaging with the media to complete the survey. If you have never engaged with the media before, we will ask you some questions about what you would like the process to involve if you were to do this sort of work in the future.
Anonymity and data
This survey is anonymous, unless you choose to share your details at the end of the survey in order to be considered for involvement in further research and/or the prize draw. Data will be handled in line with our privacy policy. We will not share the raw data from this survey with anyone not working for/on behalf of NSUN. We will use the results of this survey, including anonymous quotations from free text answers, in a public report later this year. We will remove any potentially identifying information from any quotations used, but please bear this in mind when you are choosing what to share.
Once you have completed the survey you can enter into a prize draw for one of five £20 Love2Shop vouchers. This will require sharing your email address, but it is held separately from your main survey submission.
If you have questions about this survey or would like any support to take part, please email us at info@nsun.org.uk. NSUN is a lived experience-led mental health charity and membership organisation. To join the network as a member, sign up here.