Our volunteers freely give their precious time to bring you these very important stories. Bringing “back to life” and telling the stories of thousands of mental health patients who died in a mental health institution that had the following list of names over the years: The Sussex County Asylum, Brighton Borough Asylum, Brighton County Borough Mental Hospital, Brighton Mental Hospital and finally St. Francis Hospital. If their body was not claimed after death these people were buried without a name and minimal grave marking (even this has gone today) in the hospital cemetery. Today this cemetery is in the grounds of The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath on the site of what was originally the Sussex County Hospital. These thousands of people, who all too often have been lost and forgotten, were perhaps misunderstood, disrespected, stigmatised, shamed, shunned and perhaps even hated, and feared during life and certainly anonymised and disrespected in death. They and probably their family members suffered the shame, stigma and perhaps ostracisation that is all too often associated with mental health problems. One of our community project objectives is to try and show, through the stories that we produce, that mental health problems should encourage our understanding, empathy and support and not just bring shame and sigma.

Our volunteers are community minded people and give their time and energy to things that they care deeply about. They are not paid for their work on this community project. They pay rental for their Ancestry, Find My Past etc. genealogical research applications and also pay the Government Records Office for the Birth, Marriage and Death certificate copies required for development of their research for the stories that they publish on our web site. Without access to paid applications and services such as these we would not be able to fulfil our community project objectives of which the engine room is the stories that you can read on our web site without charge.

The educational profile of or volunteers ranges from a basic education, no qualifications and straight to work after leaving school, to a university degree and a good career. As our volunteer team grows, we may see extensions of this educational profile at both ends.

Our average volunteer age is around retirement age. Most of our volunteers are women. Most are married with children and grandchildren. All our volunteers demonstrate generosity of spirit and the endurance and tenacity to research and write stories of long dead and mostly forgotten mental health patients who in many cases have left a small footprint in our national records. Our volunteers demonstrate the courage to complete each story, have it reviewed while also reviewing stories for colleagues on the project and eventually have the story published with their name at the top of it, along with the name of the person whom they have brought “back to life”.

Our very comradely team of volunteers work cooperatively, constantly supporting and encouraging each other. This is often demonstrated during the research and development of a story when, given the vagaries of genealogical research, it is quite possible to get “stuck” or end up in a blind alley. Our volunteers are encouraged to sing out and ask for help using WhatsApp, or a telephone call, or emails to communicate with other team members and quickly learn that there is much help to be had all around them. Our team of volunteers is geographically dispersed, and this does not stand in the way of them being a very effective team

We have a policy of peer review for our stories before they are published. We use a process where one volunteer will review the story of another volunteer before a story can be published. The reviewer and reviewee will work together in a cooperative, friendly and encouraging way to agree the final version of the story before it is published. This will most often be done through a series of emails and phone calls as our volunteers are geographically apart. The focus of the review is on accuracy, clarity (especially for any readers for whom English is a second or even third language) and comprehensibility.

On our community project we have no project delivery dates for stories. There are no schedules or deadlines for our volunteers. They do their research and writing when it suits them, when they can fit it in, they take holiday breaks and work on the project on holiday if they feel like it, take childcare breaks, take sick breaks, work on other interests. We have set the project up so that working as a volunteer on it will fit with many life styles: retired people who must help with child care, people who are still working full time, students, care home residents, people who have hobbies, single people, people with partners, people with disabilities, people with mental health problems, people residing outside the UK, people in the Merchant Navy, people in the Royal Navy, the list is almost endless. We want people who volunteer for this project to think of it very much as a hobby and NOT a job. Our volunteers can leave whenever they like, take extended breaks etc. Nobody from the project will hound, chase nag or pester them. Our volunteers are as free as the air. We want all our volunteers to be relaxed and happy and enjoy the opportunity to bring long lost and forgotten people back into the light. In so doing our volunteers help to show the world that having a mental health problem is not a crime and should encourage our understanding, empathy and support and not just bring shame and sigma. Our volunteers are all social heroes with huge hearts.

If you would like to learn more about becoming a volunteer with our community project and helping to bring these abandoned and lost mental health patients of yesterday “back to life” please go to our Contact Us page and get in touch with us. We will almost certainly welcome you with open arms, even if you are a complete novice at doing genealogical research.