Editorial Policy
1. Introduction
The fundamental principle of our editorial policy is to provide reliable, accurate, research-based, and up to date information to our readers.
We follow the guidelines set out in our manifesto to ensure that any content we produce and publish, including but not limited to, articles, blogs, research reports, and brochures offer the quality and valuable information.
The content created by our in-house editorial team, guest authors and professionals, and partner organisations go through our rigorous editorial standards for quality assurance.
2. Content creation
Our content is produced either by our own editorial staff or guest authors who are domain experts.
Our staff editors: They have a minimum qualification of degree in Psychology and substantial experience in working with a mental healthcare organisation and/or supporting people struggling with mental, emotional, and behavioural health challenges.
Guest authors and contributors: The expert guest authors are carefully selected after vetting their credentials and domain expertise. We discuss with them the ideas or topics for the content, based on our experience, for example what kind of questions our readers ask on our Beat The Stigma platform or to our peer support workers. Our in-house editorial team also provide regular feedback to the contributors.
Any piece of content written by our in-house team or invited expert authors go through the same review and monitoring process to ensure our readers get the accurate and latest information.
3. Content review
Each piece of content is reviewed by our editorial board that consist of our in-house editors and advisors. The key aspects that we use as a yardstick to measure the quality of the content are:
- Clarity: It's about the language and structure. Our objective is to make sure the content is easily understandable, without jargons or abbreviations - if any of these are used, we make sure to explain them properly.
- Accuracy: All content is fact-checked and verified through multiple sources.
- Reliability: This is one of the most important factors. We make sure the content is research-backed, scientifically validated, well-reasoned and comprehensive.
- Inclusivity: We take inclusivity very seriously. Our editorial team make sure the content is unbiased, free of judgment, and respects all backgrounds (race, gender, neurodiversity, etc.)
- Accessibility: We take all possible care to make our content legible on different screen sizes, right contrast, font size and colour, and without any distractions.
4. Content monitoring and updating
Our content focuses on mental health, emotional and behavioural wellbeing. We understand that with new research and technological advances, the content can become out of date very quickly.
We have put in place a process to constantly update our content on regular basis. Our editorial staff maintain a schedule to follow, which means every published piece of contents is reviewed at a specified time as per the review schedule.
You may notice that each article and blog published on our website have two dates - one, when the article was published and the other one when it was last updated. This 'Last updated' date is when our team have modified the information if any inaccuracies are identified, new information is added or any other improvements to make the content more valuable for our readers.
We also invite the feedback from our readers and make changes in our content based on any issues highlighted by our readers.
5. Commitment to transparency, accuracy, and inclusivity
Commitment to transparency, accuracy, and inclusivity
It's our commitment to ensure that all the content that we publish is accurate, trustworthy, research-backed, clear, inclusive, and accessible. To achieve this goal, we have made our editorial standards transparent for our contributors (both internal and guest experts) and readers.
Our continuous effort is to promote the diversity and exclusivity. We take pride in our editorial team, 60% of whom have lived and shared mental health experience. We really understand how important it is to produce the content that support and inform our readers irrespective of their race, religion, gender orientation, social status, ethnicity, culture, or neurodiversity.
It's our pledge to use simple, approachable, and respectful language. We regularly involve our community of volunteers and research new trends within mental health domain. We know that every person is different and particularly mental health topics can be interpreted in different ways by different people. Therefore, we review our editorial policy and standards every year as new terminologies and language trends emerge all the time.
6. Community of expert contributors
We have built a community of expert guest authors who have research degrees and/ or significant contribution in the domain of mental, emotional and behavioural healthcare. If you want to join our community of expert authors, you can get in touch with us at info@mindsum.org, and we will be happy to help you explain the process.
You will be joining a growing community of researchers, scientists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals. With your contribution, thousands of readers will benefit. Publishing a piece of content on our website will also help you promote your profile.
This policy was last updated on: 07 March 2023.
Next review date: 07 March 2024