Become a Member or Supporter

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 (such as events and training/learning spaces) to share knowledge and build momentum/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 (usually sent on Monday). Please add info@nsun.org.uk to your safe senders/address book (especially if your confirmation email goes to your spam/junk folder). If you don’t get a confirmation email at all, please re-submit a sign up form, ensuring the email address is correct. If you still don’t get a confirmation email, and/or don’t start to get the weekly 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, and you can take part in projects and events that are only open to members. As an individual member you can vote in our Annual General Meetings (AGMs).

2. User-led group member

Choose this category of membership if you represent a user-led group* (working in and around mental health at the community/grassroots level) and wish to sign the group up as a member. By joining, your group will become part of the network (which includes lots of other user-led groups) and can access support for furthering your user-led initiative, including by taking part in projects, events and trainings that are only open to members. You will receive our weekly members’ bulletin full of news and opportunities, and occasionally other communications about topics relevant to user-led groups specifically. As a user-led group member, you can vote in our AGMs.

If there are multiple people in your group who have lived experience and want to become members in order to get updates from us, they can also sign up personally using the “individual member” sign up form above.

*Definition: a “user-led group” means a group 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, your group can still sign up as an NSUN supporter (below).

3. Supporter

This option is for people who are interested in NSUN’s work but who do not meet the criteria for full membership as they do not have direct/first-hand lived experience of mental ill-health, distress and/or trauma. It is also for representatives of groups/organisations that are not user-led (such as charities, higher education institutions and corporate organisations).

Full membership is reserved for individuals with lived experience/user-led groups, therefore supporters do not having voting rights at the AGM, and cannot sign up to attend member-only spaces (open to people with lived experience only), but will be kept up to date with NSUN’s work through a newsletter once every two months. 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 if you want to get the bimonthly newsletter and/or receive information on how to support us in addition to your membership communications (the weekly bulletin, plus occasional ad-hoc emails); please complete the form below.