NSUN currently hosts:
- Synergi, a programme of work focussing on the intersection of racial justice and mental health. Hosted by NSUN and held by a governance board including Catalyst 4 Change, the Synergi project centres lived experience and community action. Synergi is directly held by NSUN, with Synergi staff being NSUN employees.
- misery, a mental health community and sober rave based in london and led by and for queer, trans, intersex, black people and people of colour (qtibpoc) with lived experience of madness, mental health challenges, time in hospital, addiction, public service use, disability, trauma, medication and neurodivergence.
- North East Together (NEt), a regional user-led lived experience network in the North East of England.
- We also provide fiscal hosting for the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC).
Until September 2021, NSUN hosted the Survivor Researcher Network, which is now an independent CIC.
Read more about NSUN’s current hosted projects below.
Synergi
Synergi focuses on the intersection of racial justice and mental health, distress and trauma.
Synergi had a previous iteration as a knowledge hub, bringing together research and network building. In its new iteration it is hosted by NSUN, and its focus is on shifting power and resource to grassroots groups and community organisers working on the intersection of racial justice and mental health, including groups working on abolition and resistance to carceral forms of state violence.
Synergi has four main workstreams:
- Grants Programme – Small grants programme redistributing resources to grassroots and user-led groups working on mental health and racial justice.
- Community Responses to Mental Health – This work will include those funded under round 1 of our grants scheme but also round 2, with the aim to support the work that has historically already been done in this space.
- Supporting Movement Spaces – We are aware that grassroots activism often lacks access to resources so, in addition to the grants scheme we are working to support this work in a variety of ways, both practically but also holistically to ensure that those working on the front line are sustained and replenished.
- Remembrance As Resistance – This workstream will address the historical epistemic imbalance of activism by racialised communities in the UK by documenting this work whilst also creating intergenerational conversations and networks.
You can find out more about the project and sign up for updates by visiting the Synergi website. You can get in touch with Synergi at synergi.info@nsun.org.uk.
misery
about misery
misery is a mental health community and sober rave based in london and led by and for queer, trans, intersex, black people and people of colour (qtibpoc) with lived experience of madness, mental health challenges, time in hospital, addiction, public service use, disability, trauma, medication and neurodivergence.
we co-create free, playful, accessible sober spaces, services, practices, parties and resources to cultivate communities of connection, care and solidarity that can support and sustain the collective healing and resilience of qtibpoc world over. we know first hand that healing and liberation is interwoven and by nurturing community care and addressing collective trauma, we seek to disrupt the growing privatisation of healing and the “self-care industrial complex”.
misery is a reminder that you’re not too sensitive, it’s mad out here.
misery as a hosted project with NSUN
three years into running a mental health collective with overwhelming demand from our community and no support or protection for ourselves, we recognized that we needed to slow down, rest, nourish, and ask for help if we were to keep misery alive. the national survivor user network (nsun) heard our call, and we are now honoured to be one of their hosted projects, until 2024, the aim of which is to support the growth and development of misery by enabling us to benefit from the container of nsun’s policies, safeguarding and legal structure (woo).
roots
our work is rooted in the principles of healing centered harm reduction including trauma-informed care, agency, collaboration, intersectionality, consent and acknowledges the historical and on-going social, cultural, environmental and economic systems that constantly terrorise our communities including experiences of colonisation, anti-blackness and racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism and other oppressions.
goals
- to provide accessible, supportive and politically engaged events, spaces and services by and for qtibpoc to build community and help us to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the land
- to develop resources, research, artistic work, modalities and practices that facilitate healing and challenge dominant misperceptions about mental health, addiction, disability, trauma and neurodiversity
- to promote leadership and development opportunities for qtibipoc with lived experience of mental health problems, madness, addiction, disability, trauma, and neurodivergence – within our communities, health and wellbeing settings, the arts and wider society.
Follow misery
North East Together (NEt)
North East together (NEt) is the Regional Network for people with lived experience of mental health conditions living in the North East of England.
Since our launch at a conference in April 2009 attended by over 150 of the region’s service users, carers and workers in the mental health field, we have carried out a variety of initiatives usually led by our members letting us know what our priorities should be. For example, our Welfare Reform Action Group was set up in response to the 2010 Coalition Government’s changes to the benefits system, and campaigned to highlight the injustices of Welfare Reform and advocated for a fairer system for all.
In the last few years, we have developed some strong relationships with the statutory sector, and in particular with Public Health England and The Northern Clinical Network. We have worked closely with these and other partners in various pieces of work on a regional level.
To find out more about NEt, please contact the coordinator, Mish Loraine: mish.loraine@netogether.co.uk or 07902403630.