Web for Information and Mental Health Support

Editor's Notes

• #3: The truth is the web is new. It is taking us a while to learn what we can do.
• #4: We’ve all seen the headlines: many exaggerate and distort the use we can use the web.
• #5: Imagine for a sec that we learnt how to fly thanks to some amazing piece of technology. How would the newspapers cover the story?
• #6: Substitute the web for the word ‘flying’ and you get the picture. Not much would probably change. This emphasises the point that much of issues are to do with the fact that the web is new. The behaviours, how the new possibilities influence our social relationships would transpire later.
• #7: The web is a mix of positive and negative impacts- which we’re in the process of working out for ourselves. This diagram is part of work to visualise the network of connections that the web activates.
• #8: Let’s have a balanced discussion about the web and what it’s potential is to help us. Learning to ride a bike was terrifying when we fell off for the first time, terrific when we let to go solo. Amazing when we learnt to play games and be with our peers, shocking when we saw our first major bike accident. Revolutionary when we realised the significance of being able to go off our own away from our parents, and mystifying when tried to mend our first puncture.
• #9: Worth asking the fundamental question: is access to more and more information always a good thing? Aim is to raise some questions about our use of the web to develop information and support services. Mark Charmer made the analogy between Twitter and the invention of radar during the first half of the Twentieth century at the Media140 conference. In fact, it’s an analogy that works for social media in general and the web. Radar battle is with ‘clutter’ things like rain and sandstorm that sometimes get picked up. Some of this peripheral vision information captured in social media can be useful, but plenty can lead to false alarms and worry. Technology, social interaction with this technology, not changing the environment, it’s making our environment more easily visible. Central question is about the assumption we make that access to information is always a good thing. Is it? There are surely cases where too much information can be overwhelming and anxiety provoking. Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Bright-Sided - How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”. We need a commitment to realism. Better to have the information than not, but once we have it, how do work out what’s valuable and what isn’t? Dependent on human behaviour, more people interact with the technology the better the visibility, unlike radar.
• #10: Let’s look at three new capabilities that the web’s given. Although there are many others.
• #11: Anonymity is not new – writing – helplines – fax – but the web has opened up new opportunities for practitioners to make particularly early interventions that were either not practical before or did not offer a very complete form of anonymity
• #12: The rise of anonymity is significant because it empowers the service user. Unlike with confidentiality, anonymity is within the service user’s sphere of influence. It’s also subject to very personal drivers like feelings (such as embarrassment), rather than formal drivers such as the laws and organisational policies, as with confidentiality. Anonymity on the web- not given to service user- as a journalist might give to a source. Personal identity is for the service user to give to the service provider.
• #13: Stats – 994 – Futures Company carried out research for YouthNet – July 2009.
• #14: Describing how she coped with her own mental health difficulties. Anonymity gives you the opportunity to share what they are feeling on the inside, with others on the outside (it needs to be a safe environment to be able to facilitate this).
• #16: The web opens up opportunities to communicate with others whilst at the same time withholding our personal identity. Anonymity is part of the widened continuum of social communication. We can now communicate with others, and still hold on to more anonymity than we could do in the past. Conversely, we can also share our lives more publicly than before- interesting when we look at participation later in the presentation.
• #17: Persistence is the big change, it means that many people may be more reluctant to engage with people they see as external to the private lives- such as service providers. Anonymity becoming more important than it might have been in the past.
• #18: Build online advice and support were people can make friends- backed up by trained advisors
• #19: Friends are crucial for relationships issues- when mental health problems involve relationships- users are less likely to reach out to mental health service providers.
• #20: Hybrid advisors- trained peer support – anonymity makes it easier to overcome fear and mistrust
• #21: Health concerns are less likely to be discussed with friends, kept private and not shared. How can users get much needed support from their peers in these situations?
• #25: Offering a balance or understanding better what you specialise in so that you can build partnerships with organisations that complement your work/services.
• #37: Meaningful participation can be a driver- can be a driver for social change Participation needs to be meaningful. Patient Opinion – example of how any service by being more open and transparent about itself can be supportive to service users. Information- if it becomes an overload can be disempowering, information must not be detached from the human story and must be the basis of a real exchange- connection ALISS project – we rely of the community for part of the jigsaw.