We take your privacy very seriously, and recognise the immense courage it often takes to share experiences of mental illness and of financial difficulty.
Money and Mental Health
Money and Mental Health is a registered charity, no 1166493. Our purpose is to advance understanding of mental health, financial capability and the relationship between the two; to achieve this objective including through research, discussion, innovation and the design and testing of new approaches, and by disseminating the useful results of these endeavours.
Our Research Community of Experts by Experience is core to our work.
Research Aims
The aim of the Research Community is to improve understanding of the links between money and mental health and to identify policy, product or regulatory solutions to best help those at risk of mental health problems. Analyses of the data provided will allow us to provide clear evidence to government, regulators, essential services providers, health care professionals, developers and advice services, demonstrating the need and potential impact of such solutions. This analysis may take the form of publications, reports, web pages and presentations. Your words may be quoted as part of these presentations of our analysis but if this occurs any information provided that could potentially be used to identify you will be removed.
What will participating in the Research Community involve?
Research Community members will be invited to take part in a range of activities, including regular surveys, quick polls, focus groups and depth interviews.
Research activities will often vary both in subject and in length, all will centre around your experiences of money and mental health, and require no knowledge or special preparation – we just want to hear about your experiences. We understand that concentrating can be more difficult when you’re experiencing a mental health problem, so we do our best to keep surveys short, and use software that allows you to exit the survey at any time. You’ll be able to come back later and start where you left off. Surveys will generally take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.
Other types of research may require more of your time. Focus groups usually take 90 minutes, and interviews between 30 and 90 minutes, depending on the topic. We know this is a lot to ask of you, so when we invite you to participate in more in-depth research we will always offer a thank you gift to show our appreciation of your time. Please note that this does not represent a regular paid employment opportunity.
From time to time you may also be asked if you would like to participate in trials of new products or services (e.g. financial management or mental health apps) to evaluate their effectiveness.
We will invite you to participate in research activities by email on a regular basis. You can also log in to our members-only Research Community website, my.moneyandmentalhealth.org, to take part at a time that suits you.
Participation is voluntary
Participating in the Research Community is completely voluntary. Members can choose to stop taking part in a research activity or the Research Community as a whole at any time, without giving a reason. Members who choose to leave the Research Community will not be further contacted for research purposes.
Confidentiality and anonymity
The data you share with us will be stored in a secure archive accessible only by staff of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.
We will never share details of your name, location or contact details, unless you give us specific permission to do so. We will anonymise data before processing it for research purposes. We will publish aggregated statistics, taking care not to publish anything with a sample size so small that you may be recognised, and anonymised quotes. We will take precautions where necessary to reduce the risk that you could be identified from quotes by changing details like names, ages and locations.
Anonymised data may be shared with other professional researchers for secondary analysis, on the condition that they agree to preserve the confidentiality of the information provided, but we will never share personal information like your name, email address or location without your permission, unless we believe you or someone else is in immediate danger.
What are the risks of participating?
Research activities will be asking you about your experiences around mental health and financial issues. It is possible therefore that discussing these issues may be, at times, upsetting. If you decide to take part in any research activity and begin to find you are getting upset, please take a break, stop participating or get support (a list of support services is available here).
Questions or concerns about the Research Community
If you have any questions or concerns, or you would like more information about the Research Community, please contact the Research Community manager, Chris Lees: [email protected].