Forging a digital identity for learning disability campaigning
How can healthcare workers and people with a learning disability best collaborate to co-produce an online presence, for the purpose of campaigning to reduce stigma and discrimination? Well I’m not entirely sure. But we’re going to have a go at it. Our Get Me? campaign was developed when people with a learning disability joined forces with statutory and voluntary sector partners and in a shared mission to try and shift public attitudes. We had a simple idea – create a short film with people with a learning disability talking about stuff they like and enjoy – sport, food, socialising, reading the paper, listening to the radio and so on. Get Me?- get a better understanding of learning disabilities is our message. We’ve created posters, postcards and a website which will include stories from people who participated in the film. But all this is a bit static. So we started thinking about how we might use social media to get conversations going about the campaign and expand our engagement. We recently had a great workshop with Abhay Adhikari, who is @gopaldass on Twitter, about digital identities onlin,e and we are using his formula to help us work through our ideas. We plan to create an online eco-system of people we can engage and influence who will be interested in our campaign sharing the messages more widely (for example campaigners, parents, family members, teachers etc.). Our digital solution is a Facebook fan page. Firstly, we want to go where most people are. Secondly, we want to be able to post lots of photos and pictures (for example, photographs of stuff which is good in...
The perfect social media platform – what elements would you include?
So what would the perfect social media platform look, feel and sound like if we had wellbeing at the centre of our collective designer-minds? This is one the many questions we considered at a workshop facilitated by myself and Aiden Moseby aka @textartist as part of the Leeds Digital Festival on 11 October 2012. We were joined by Anna Roberts aka @miri_ness and we started with her Facebook vs Reality photography exhibition at the Round Foundry Media Centre as our inspiration. Our workshop comprised a fabulous mix of digital and mental health world peeps, plus plenty of others inbetween, and even a few six formers for good measure. Participants were open and candid and this was invaluable to a great discussion. So the first thing I learnt was that the topic appears to be of interest to more people than just those working in the mental health sector. Our packed house and diverse mix of participants gave a good indication of this. The second thing I learnt was that our emotional responses to social media are less about specific platforms and more about purpose, meanings and behaviours. Her are a few factors we considered: Personability – some suggest that being personable but not always personal can be a protective factor. Others described it as sharing versus spilling Persona – a congruent offline/online persona is more likely to afford a sense of wellbeing than trying to be someone we aren’t Blogging for wellbeing – writing as a process of self-reflection, understanding and engaging can have therapeutic effects – process as much as product Making a contribution – sharing ideas and resources...Social media learning curve – 10 tips for NHS Trusts
In our NHS trust we’re on a steep social media learning curve when it comes to connecting online with people who have an interest in our organisation. On Twitter we are @LeedsandYorkPFT and on Facebook we have a fan page for Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. We have a Youtube site and are in the process of setting up Pinterest for our campaigning work. So here are ten things we’ve learnt so far: Getting the basics in place – we have a section on our website with guidelines for members of the public about how we use social media. We have also developed guidelines for our staff and are busy setting up a section of our intranet site to have useful information (such as guidance from professional bodies) in one place. We find ourselves amending and adding to them as new issues and possibilities arise. Connecting Twitter to Facebook – in the early days we connected our tweets to Facebook but quickly removed this link. As we began tweeting more we worried we risked spamming people with the volume of tweets popping up on Facebook. Secondly, we wanted to use Facebook a bit differently – less frequently but with longer content and photos. We’re about to start experimenting with opinion polls and event invites and generally encourage people to interact with us more on Facebook so separating them made sense. To friend or not to friend – the steer in all the NHS related guidance that we’ve seen is for members of staff to not ‘friend’ anyone on their personal Facebook who is using services provided by...
What’s social media got to do with mental health stigma?
I’ve been reading some of the literature on mental health stigma and thinking about the role social media can play in influencing attitudes and behaviours. Checking out the Time to Change campaign, which had 93,996 fans on Facebook and 13,865 followers on Twitter when I last checked, it is clear that social media is increasingly part of the mix. Just to give you an example of how messages/ideas can go viral on social media, when actress Rebecca Front tweeted: “Hey well known Twitterers. Fancy taking the stigma out of mental illness? I’ll start: I’m Rebecca Front & I’ve had panic attacks. #whatstigma” she got mental health hitting the top trending list. You can find out more about it it here . Here are a few of my initial ponderings about the role of social media as a platform for challenging stigma… Have you ever talked to someone about mental health? – Time to Change’s strap line is ‘it’s time to talk’ and this is based on research that getting people talking about mental health increases understanding. Face-to-face contact is the most effective way to positively influence discriminatory attitudes. However, it appears that contact has to be on an equal footing to be effective. Social media is a great equaliser. Twitter only allows you 140 characters whatever your status or income. I’m interested in the extent to which this sort of virtual contact may replicate direct contact. My friend’s ok with this so why shouldn’t I be? – I’ve seen quite a bit out there recently about the value of online trust – people trusting the people they follow more than they...about.me
Victoria Betton
victoria betton
director mHabitat | NHS | social media & mental health doctorate | interested in digital inclusion | parma violets fiend | http://codesigndigitalhealth.co.uk
