Considerations for sharing your story

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The recovery thoughts and stories found on our website receive lots of positive feedback from people both in the UK and abroad. However, submitting your story for use on the website or elsewhere requires a great deal of consideration.

You should keep in mind that feelings about life and wellbeing change over time, therefore the story you share today may not reflect how you feel at later stages in your life. Also, sharing your story via a web site will mean that your story will become publicly available, so anyone can read it.

Please read pages 15-18 and appendix 1 of the SRN Story sharing guidance and also consider the points below before submitting your story.

Audience:

Stories posted on the SRN web site will be available to anyone who wants to download and read them. However, readership and network member statistics suggest that most of the individuals interested in reading recovery stories will be individuals in recovery, service providers, carers and researchers or policy makers.

Anonymity:

Sharing your story does not automatically require you to use your real name. Those who have submitted stories in the past have sometimes found it useful to use an alias or pseudonym and perhaps refrained from giving identifiable information in order to protect their identity and the identity of others featured in their stories.

If you would rather not be recognised as the author or central character in the story and are unsure about submitting your story please feel free to contact us and discuss this.

We may also ask for consent from other people you identify in your story to ensure they are fully aware of the context of the piece and to protect their identity. We will deal with each case on its individual merits.

The SRN promise to:

Provide a platform for individuals to share their recovery story in their own words.
Provide assistance with editing and formatting story submissions, if required.
Discuss options of how to put together and submit a story.
Use any personal information (e.g. contact details) appropriately, abiding by legal and ethical standards.
Not pass on contact details to third parties.
Date stories as one means of recognising that stories represent a snap-shot and that people’s circumstances may well have changed since they posted their story.
Respond immediately to requests to remove stories from the SRN website.
Offer the chance to amend and update stories (subject to the provisos outlined below).
Deal appropriately with any disagreement around story sharing making contributors aware of the complaints procedure*.

Unfortunately, we are unable to:

Guarantee to post all submissions to the site.
Post stories which we consider to be defamatory, discriminatory, or in any way in conflict with our equal opportunities policy*.
Give advice to individual based on the content of a story.
Guarantee to interview individuals or help to write story submissions, though in some circumstances we will consider doing so (this will be decided on a case by case basis).
Withdraw your story from non-SRN websites. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the internet we can’t control who downloads stories or how these downloaded or printed versions are used. However, we will do our utmost to remove stories from third party websites and publications when requested to do so, but we cannot guarantee that all duplications of the stories (out with the SRN website) will be deleted.
Control third party access to stories.
Regularly contact you regarding updating your submission. However, if you wish to edit, update or remove your story you are welcome to contact us to do so at any time. We will make this option clear on the SRN website and through SRN email updates.

*SRN policy and procedures on complaints and equal opportunities are set by Penumbra (Registered in Scotland No 91542, Scottish Charity No SC010387), which is the legal fund-holding body for SRN.

Please contact us if you have further questions or if you want to discuss anything outlined here. Note that by submitting a story you are agreeing with the terms and conditions of the website.

The responsibility for recovery lies with us all, professionals, users and carers, we can only achieve it by working together, we can only achieve it by talking and listening to each other.

- Ron Coleman

See our Submit Your Thoughts pages for details on how to submit a story to us or you can contact us.