Consent best practices for storytelling

When people choose to share their lived experience, it can be a powerful storytelling tool for your charity. It’s a privilege to be able to share someone’s experience, in their own words. But it’s also a big responsibility. This article explores best practices for consent.

 

 

What is consent?

 

Consent is the permission to use someone’s words, image, or voice in a way that has been agreed, and understood, by them. Consent must be freely given.

 

 

What a consent form covers

 

A consent form should include personal information such as a full name, address, email, and telephone number. It should give options for how they want to be identified – for example, if they want to use their first name only, first name and town/city, or remain anonymous. 

 

The consent form should also enable them to choose how and where their story is shared. For example, media (broadcast, magazines, news sites), publications (leaflets, reports, newsletters, posters), and social media (list all your channels so they can choose. Some people may be fine to be featured in a Facebook post but not a TikTok video, for example).

 

Be clear on how long consent lasts for, how their consent will be stored, and that they have the right to withdraw consent at any time.

 

There should be an area to sign and date consent and a parent or guardian signature for children and young people under 18. CharityComms has a case study consent form template that you can download for free.

 

 

Collecting consent

 

There are various ways of collecting consent and will depend on the situation. For example, if you’re interviewing someone face-to-face you may take a printed form for them to fill out and sign or have a tablet where they can fill out an online form.

 

Fiona Brown, Communications Manager at Penumbra Mental Health, recommends talking people through the process and not just expecting them to read and sign the form. “Not everyone understands what we as comms professionals mean by ‘comms’. Sometimes the language we use about external content can sound like jargon to the people we work with. Not everyone has a social media account, for example, so they may not understand what sharing their story on social media could entail.

 

“So part of our ethical approach is to create a base for understanding what sharing means. We invite the person to consider how they’d feel about seeing their story on our platforms and talk about how public it is. At every stage, we remind them that it’s their story, not ours, and that they can change their mind at any time.”

 

At a mass participation event, you may have terms and conditions that state that people will be photographed or appear in video footage. You can offer people who don’t want to be photographed a sticker when they register, on the day, so that the photographer knows not to photograph or film them.

 

Some charities, such as the Trussell Trust, have their consent form on their website, whereas others may have a private link so that it’s not public.

 

 

Storing consent

 

Consent must be stored securely and be kept up to date. For GDPR purposes, your consent record needs to state: who consented, when they consented, a copy of the consent, how they consented, and whether they have withdrawn consent (and if so, when).

 

You may wish to use a third-party online data management system or use a spreadsheet that is stored securely on your server or in the cloud.

 

 

Length of consent

 

Decide how long consent should last. For some organisations, particularly ones that work with children and young people, consent tends to last for two to three years. For other organisations, content can last for five years. However long you choose, it must be stated on the consent form and a process needs to be in place for when consent runs out.

 

At the British Red Cross, consent lasts for five years and then all content is automatically archived unless it is specifically re-consented for further use. Alicia Melville-Smith, Stories Manager at the charity, says, “We make the decision to re-consent based on how well used the content is, whether it will have changed dramatically over time and if the storytellers are comfortable with us continuing to use their story.”

 

 

Train staff and volunteers who gather consent

 

Ensure that anyone who may need to get consent knows the process. The Stories team at the British Red Cross provides training to other teams in the charity who may need to gather consent at events, for example, or out in the field. This ensures that everyone knows when and how to gather consent in the right way.

 

At Penumbra Mental Health, colleagues are offered training through workshops. If a person then wants to share their story, through speaking with a practitioner, the practitioner can feel confident in the consent gathering process.