# SSI Mental Health Project Steering Group

* Rachael Ainsworth (Community Manager, Software Sustainability Institute) [e-mail]
* Mozhgan Chimeh (GPU Developer Advocate, NVIDIA) [e-mail]
* Simon Hettrick (Deputy Director, Software Sustainability Institute) [e-mail]
* Dave Horsfall (RSE, Newcastle University) [e-mail]
* Graham McCartney (Trustee of the mental health charity, Jonathan’s Voice) [e-mail]
* Mark Turner (Head of Research Software Engineering, Newcastle University) [e-mail]

Aims for this group are to:
* Provide motivation for me to drive the project forward, by defining realistic and practical milestones between meetings
* Bring expertise and guidance from different areas to increase quality
* Make sure the outputs from the project meet expectations of the SSI, and Jonathan's Voice

## Fellowship plans

To advocate for good mental health and wellbeing within research software engineering. Focusing on:
* Reducing the stigma associated with talking about mental health
* Raising awareness and educating the community

Specific fellowship proposal:
1. National mental health survey
1. Mental health workshop
1. General advocacy in community

# Meeting (12/11/2021)

Attending: Dave, Rachael, Simon, Graham, Mark

#### Progress

* Podcast with Peter Schmitt
* Mental Health First Aid course
* Mental health workshop at **Haniffa Lab**
* Mental health workshop at **STFC PhD Summer School @ Durham University**
* Mental health workshop at **Netherlands eScience Center**
* Mental health workshop at **NCL-RSE**
* Mental health workshop at **Turing Institute TPS**
* Mental health workshop at **Newcastle Data**

#### Lessons learned

* RSE Society Mentimeter works great
* Talks evolving into a basic structure of a workshop
* Awkward comparing results between teams, need survey results

#### Mental health survey

* Working survey draft:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfgLftafZljv1g7kwMuUJunp3E4z2AHHhd87nuUcAKKu42qeg/viewform?usp=sf_link

#### Important survey questions

* Who is the survey targeted at?
* How to prepare the survey questions?
* What technology and tools to use for the survey?

#### Other survey questions

* How the survey will be released to the community?
* When and how long the survey should remain open?
* How the results will be analysed?
* How the report will be disseminated?

#### PGR mental health guide

Jonathan's Voice, in collaberation with Charlie Waller, and with input from Dave Horsfall and Zoe Ayres is about to publish an mental health guide for PGR researchers.

#### Meeting notes

SH: I can think of many oppertunities for giving talks
SH: Potential for integrating with RSE mentoring system (training)
GM: Hearing other stories is important for reducing stigma
GM: Reusable workshop that others can deliver is a good idea and will resuce the load from Dave
RA: There are common form questions from the SSI to categorize participants in the survey
SH: Just target RSE society community for the survey - keep narrow
GM: "Health at work" within universities might already have data, that can be amalgamated
SH: Ethics clearance for survey is a requirement
SH: Data access in Google forms needs investigation if being considered for survey. SSI use LimeSurvey because they can specificy where the data is hosted. Guarentees GDPR compliance. https://www.limesurvey.org/
DH: Also considering generating good quality video content amplifying others talking about
RA: SSI would support videos
GM: Seen similar videos from other industries and very affective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSOFRkltS0k

# Meeting (03/04/2022)

Attending: Graham, Mozhgan, Simon, Mark, Rachael, Dave

#### Agenda

* [HackMD](https://hackmd.io/@davehorsfall/SksR4Ciwt/edit) and meeting notes
* General fellowship progress update:
* Short RSE mental health film (student project at Newcastle)
* Simon can put Dave in touch with a friend to help with an introduction video
* Code for Thought Podcast - [Keeping it together](https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/1326658/9655799-keeping-it-together)
* Peter Schmitt fellowship mentor
* SSI [blog post](https://software.ac.uk/blog/2021-12-16-festive-stress-research-software-engineers-perspective) - Festive stress: A research software engineer’s perspective
* Meeting with Simon Hettrick regarding survey (01/02/2022)
* Accepted mini-workshop at Collaberations Workshop 2022
* Lightning talk at eScience Center (22/02/2022)
* Presentation to N8 RSE Leaders (01/03/2022)
* Anika Cawthorn (UCL RSE) mental health champion
* RSE Society working group and special interest group
* Survey progress
* Link to [survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1X-GKQTFucHN2n_wFr9ss4ROaXbNyggQEaZ0AgaGSihQ/edit?usp=sharing)
* Ethics approval update
* Contacted someone from the committee beforehand to get onboard and they are now assisting
* Points for clarification on survey:
* How to phrase statement on self-identification as an RSE. Make it broader?
* Could include people who train or manage infrastructure, etc.
* Swap question on job title to be first to help identify people that we want to include in the survey but who don't want code
* Dropping the word "academic"
* Should UK respondants be filtered with a yes/no choice or country selection?
* Stick with yes/no for UK for ease of analysis but make framework available for other countries to pick up
* Which survey questions should be marked as "required"
* For Q11-14 what should the timeframe be? 2 years?
* Get feedback on the length of the survey (is it too long?)
* Are all demographic questions justifiable?
* For Q14: "Which of the following negative feelings have troubled you at work?" are the options of "Wanting to harm yourself" and "Contemplating suicide" appropriate?
* For Q13: "Which of the following has caused you significant stress", should there be more or fewer options?
* Should some be combined?
* Pressure to obtain funding?
* "Difficult clients (eg PIs)"? Maybe: Difficult stakeholders (eg clients, PIs, etc)
* Should Q27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 be numerical scale instead of freeform?
* Q42: Free form statement for public report (is this necessary?)
* Is a survey introduction video a good idea?
* Feedback on [Information Sheet](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gcuwIPwO72BKF9SbauL4eBn8zRDlx_q3qedkzpcd57c/edit?usp=sharing)
* Review survey questions

#### Meeting notes

SH: Further discussion topic of how to strcuture support for leaders, DH also interested

# Meeting (07/10/2022)
Attendees: Dave, Simon, Graham, Mozhgan, Rachael

#### Fellowship updates
* 2022-04-06 CW22 Workshop (Hybrid Working) with Anika Cawthorn
* 2022-06-13 N8 CIR Community Day
* 2022-07-19 Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya Initiative (BHKi)
* 2022-09-22 FBMH IT Community (Matthew Machin)
* 2022-06-16 Ethics approval for survey
* 2022-09-06 RSECon22 (Plenary)
* Survey released with 153 responses (98 complete)
* Anika Cawthorn - collaberative SSI fellowship application
* RSC4 - mental health panel
* Mental health mailing list (82 contacts)

#### Agenda
* Mental Health Survey
* How long to keep it open?
* Targeted number of respondents?
* Collaboration on data analysis
* Collaboration on write up? Paper/chapter (Emma Karoune)
* Report target (CW23?)
* Mental health community group
* RSE Soc umbrella?
* Slack channel?
* Frequency of meetings?
* Objectives?
* Peer support?
* Education about mental health conditions?
* Creation of resources? (MHFA, Posters, Check-in forms, activities)
* Policy formation?
*
* Mailing list roadmap
* Mental health discussion podcasts (TalkingDevs)

#### Notes
* SH: Proberly interest for wider academic community? Could possible speak at uni level for targeted events, like mental health awareness week (speaker fees?)
* GM: Jonathan's Voice could sponsor speakers for universities.
* GM: What is deadline for fellowship?
* RA: May 2023 - after CW23 - extended due to covid
* GM: What should we set for final deliverables?
* DH: Write up survey results and publish, possibly as paper or chapter
* SH: UKRI would probably be really interested in this
* GM: How should the report be diseeminated to give a lasting impact?
* SH: RSESoc, SSI, National societies (9 international), SSI website, RSESoc
* MC: Going back to mailing list, want to explore how we maximise usage. Personal stories for podcast or webinars are really powerful - how mental health affects work, confidence, burnout, talking about signs and stressors. Advice: find group of people who are like you and work together, chop up work and push forward
* RA: Could link up with code for thought, need support of peter but he's in the network
* GM: perhaps focus for remaining fellowship time should be finding a network to hand over to. And train others to use the workshop slides
* SH: A working group through the society would be good. Likely to find enthusiastic volunteers.
* SH: For survey 346 is needed for gold standard. Current numbers of ~100 are ok to get the point across.
* DH: Close survey just after RSC4.
* RA: Call for collaboration on data analysis published in [SSI Fellows' Newsletter](https://software.ac.uk/news/fellows-newsletter-october-2022) - can also share a stand alone news item via SSI website for more targeted inviations to collaborate on analysis.
* Simon to connect Dave with RSE and script for initial survey analysis.
* Follow up meeting after survey close to discuss initial data analysis. Probably in January due to busy schedules in Nov and wanting to avoid Christmas.