How to share your story

There are two ways to share your story on the ‘Your Stories’ section of the ISF website: have a phone interview with us or write your own story.

1: Phone interview

Get in touch with the ISF Communication’s Manager, Jill Clarke at jillclarke@irishskin.ie. Please include your contact details and a line or two about yourself and why you would like to share your story.

The interview approach works well for anyone who would like to share, but has not previously done so before, and would like some help developing the content of their story.

• Step 1: We’ll get in touch with you and arrange a time to do a short interview over the phone. Alternatively, the questions can be sent to you via email to review and provide answers in your own time.
• Step 2: During the phone interview Jill will ask a series of questions to help shape the content of your story e.g. information about your age, where you live, what you work as, your diagnosis etc.
• Step 3: We will then develop the interview into a short story approx. 200 to 600 words long and send to you for review and approval before publishing on the website.

Your story will appear on our website and social media channels, so you should consider if you are comfortable with being identified by your interview and with sharing your photo or chosen image.

2: Submitting your finished story

You can send your finished story (text or video) to Jill Clarke, Communications Manager anytime at jillclarke@irishskin.ie.  Be sure to include your contact details along with the story.

Below are our publication guidelines and social media community guidelines to assist you when writing your story:

1. Your story should be between 200 and 1,000 words long and broken into short paragraphs (this makes it easier for someone reading your story on their phone).
2. You may like to share some general information about your personal circumstances e.g. age, what county you live, and when you were first diagnosed etc.
3. Feel free to share your journey e.g. what you did to manage your condition, how you felt, the challenges you faced.
4. Consider sharing your reflections over time: what has changed, what has helped, what has been difficult etc.
5. Your story will appear on our website and social media channels. Please consider including a landscape photo (or video) of yourself to go alongside your story. If you prefer, you can include a picture of something that is meaningful to you
6. We want everyone to feel comfortable, safe, and respected when reading content on our website, so we strongly discourage comments that are hurtful or are likely to be distressing to other people. The ISF also reserves the right to decline to post any story which includes, but are not limited to, any of the following:

I. Abusive or offensive comments.

II. Accusations, material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive or libellous.

III. Third party advertising – content that promote services or products, advertisement of a business or commercial transaction.

IV. Comments promoting or opposing any person campaigning for election to a political office or promoting or opposing any referendum or vote.

VI. Personal attacks, statements or comments going beyond constructive criticism or fair comment.

VII. While we respect your right to hold views contrary to those of the ISF, we will not post information or guidance, or any reference thereto, about treatments, remedies or therapies which do not have a scientific and clinical evidence base, or those which contain factual errors, or may be dangerous or harmful if followed.

VIII. We ask everyone reading our website to notify us if they see posts, comments or material which they feel breaches any of these guidelines or which may cause concern.