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Department of Psychiatry

Our Voices

Our Voices is a mental health blog like no other. Each post is written by individuals with serious mental illnesses, recovering from mental illnesses, or touched by mental illnesses in some way. Their words are fueled by their own experiences of discovery, struggle, hope, and recovery, and their goal is to impart their knowledge to anyone going through the same experience.

The name of this blog pays tribute to the 2008 book written by CECMH patients: Our Voices: First-Person Accounts of Schizophrenia

Want to share your story? Scroll to the bottom of this page for more details on becoming an Our Voices contributor.

Schizophrenia

Sarah Merritt Ryan | STEP Patient

Sarah is an accomplished writer, public speaker and support group facilitator for National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) as well as a blog contributor for Psychology Today. She is a survivor of schizophrenia, and she is now a wife, mother and owner of two rescues.

Become an Our Voices Contributor

Our Voices is a mental health care affirmation blog with content created by past/current patients, peer-support specialists and family members/friends of patients.

Process: For a blog submission to be considered, the following must be followed.

Step 1: Complete the Authorization Form

  1. Contributors must complete this form: 739s Authorization to Use or Disclose Protected Health Information (PHI) for Education, Fundraising or Marketing Public Relations.
  2. If a contributor is a patient, their clinician will need to add the completed form to the patient’s EPIC MyChart.

Step 2: Submit Content

  1. Along with the completed Authorization Form, contributors should fill out this Guest Writer Submission Form (GWSF). Both forms should be emailed to cecmh@unc.edu and CC their clinician (if applicable). Contributors have the option of submitting their article via a Word document or similar file format if they prefer, as long as the information on the first page of the GWSF is included. The GWSF should be filled out for each submission.
  2. There is no character limit for the blog articles. Contributors can submit anything from a couple of sentences to several paragraphs. They also have the option of creating a multi-article series.

Step 3: Review Committee

  1. Each blog submission will be reviewed by the Our Voices Review Committee as well as the UNC Health Media Team. If a blog is approved, it will be added to the Our Voices page.

Please Note: Content from approved blogs might also be promoted on CECMH social media platforms if the contributor has given consent in the Authorization Form. If for any reason a contributor wishes to recant their article, they can submit a removal request to cecmh@unc.edu.