For family members, friends or carers
Family members and friends who support people with mental health problems have extensive knowledge and experience that can really make a difference to research projects.
The Mental Health Research Network is looking for family members who are prepared
to share that knowledge and experience, and help researchers plan and run studies
that we support.
We run FACTOR (Families/Friends and Carers Together in Research), a network of family members and friends. If you become a member of FACTOR, you will be told about opportunities to get involved in research, and you can commit as much time as you want. ‘Getting involved’ may mean going to a one-off meeting to give advice on a specific proposal. Or it may mean joining a research project steering committee that meets regularly, or going to meetings of a group of researchers planning future studies.
As a FACTOR member, you may wish to join one of our Carer Reference Groups that meet monthly in London and Coventry. People who attend these meetings are asked to give comments on specific studies, or work on documents that are part of a research study to make them easier to understand. Guest speakers are invited to the Reference Group meetings to explain about different aspects of research, or talk about a particular project.
Anyone who does any work for FACTOR is paid for the hours they put in.
If you would like to find out more, contact us on mhrnppi@kcl.ac.uk, or ring 020 7848 0644. Or read about some of FACTOR's members in this section and find
out why they joined the network, and what they do.
To become a member of FACTOR, fill in and submit the membership form on this website, or download a membership form on this page, fill it in and return it to:
FREEPOST Plus RSCK-GSTZ-TJYY
MHRN FACTOR
PO77, Institute of Psychiatry
16 De Crespigny Park
London SE5 8AF
page last updated 18 July 2012