About Lonely Not Alone
Lonely Not Alone was a campaign made by young people, for young people, to tackle the stigma of youth loneliness.
Co-designed in full partnership with young people aged 12 – 24 with the aim to create work that was authentic and honest; and that could help other young people identify potential ways out of their loneliness.
Whilst the campaign ended in 2023, we at Digital Wonderlab – the team that created the site - hope by keeping the digital universe live, we can help young people who are lonely to find ways to help themselves and each other. We hope people who have not experienced loneliness will understand how challenging it can be, and how they can help.
This site has no longer accepted submissions since 2023.
Privacy
When young people shared their personal information
When young people chose to share a story on the Lonely Not Alone website (https://lonelynotalone.org) they shared their age and email address, but not their name. We verified their email address as part of the story submission process. No other data was collected. Their email address was originally used to:
Ensuring that every young person who submitted their story to the site would remain anonymous to other site visitors.
The law requires us to share with you how we use your information.
When site visitors shared their story, it was made clear to them that it will remain on the website for as long as the website is live, or until they request for it to be removed. Everyone has the right to be forgotten, and users can request for their data to be removed at any time by emailing hello@digitalwonderlab.com. The data users submitted as part of the process is stored on a secure server and encrypted in rest and in flight. The server is protected by a roll-based user name and password, is restricted to UK IP and can only be accessed by specified individuals. Data will not be shared.
The Original Programme of Work & Terms
Safeguarding
Stories from children 12 years old, or younger
To include as many children’s stories as possible, children who were 12 or younger were able to submit stories.
Children under 13 can’t take part in social media apps, therefore if a story was submitted by a child who was 12 years or younger, a specific email flow was initiated inviting them to immediately reach out for help and support, giving some suggestions of who to talk to, and how to reach them.
Children under the age of 13 were not invited to take part in the Discord Group chats with other young people, or to engage with the campaign on social media.
What we’ve done with young people’s stories
When young people shared their stories with us, we sent an automated email that signposts them to sources of immediate help and support. These sources of help were specifically tailored to children, teenagers, and young adults, and available by text and by phone 24hours-a-day. This was to protect and support young people who may have just shared their story for the first time, and may have been left with complex feelings to work through.
The original team read or listened to each individual story and ‘sorted’ the story into one of 10 constellations, before publication. The team were trained in safeguarding children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults.
If there were cause for concern, and a belief that a child was in immediate danger or might harm another child the story was not published. Because young people were only asked to provide their age and email address, the team were not able to contact the police and/or the local authority where they lived. However, the team emailed the young person, sharing the details of Childline and The Samaritans, and encouraged them to reach out and talk to a trusted adult. The team also advised the young person that if they or another child or young person was in immediate danger, they should call 999.
Should a young person have shared more details about themselves then the team might have contacted the police directly.
If the team saw or heard information within the story that would identify this, or any other young person, the team removed that information. Stories submitted by audio have a filter applied over the top to slightly change the voice and help anonymise the storyteller.
When a story was published
Once a young person’s story was published, an email was sent with relevant and targeted sources of support specific to the issues they described in their story.
If a story contained information which might trigger a strong emotional reaction in someone reading it, that story has been flagged with a content warning with a word or two about the specific nature of the content, and website visitors can choose to open the story, or to skip over it to the next story.
Original Campaign partners
The Co-op Foundation
The Co-op Foundation funded the original programme of work, following Co-op and British Red Cross research that found young people were lonely more often than any other age group. They launched Lonely Not Alone in 2019 to tackle the stigma of loneliness among young people aged 10 to 25-years-old.
Partnership with Effervescent
Effervescent were a charity that specialised in developing and creating campaigns with young people who have lived through painful or traumatic experiences, they were commissioned to work directly with young people and support them to use their lived experience of loneliness to help themselves and their peers. The Effervescent team managed all incoming submissions.
Effervescent has now closed
Honourable mentions
Barnardo’s advised on safeguarding; and RSBC and Mencap advised on how to make this site as accessible as possible.
Original Functionality
Emails were sent to users from within the database and from Mailchimp. Data exported to Mailchimp will have been deleted on upload. All emails to site visitors include a link to unsubscribe, and have their data deleted. Audio stories – but no accompanying personal data – will have been exported to Telbee for audio editing. You can find Telbee’s Privacy notice here. None of this functionality remains
Ticking the “I’m happy for my story to be shared anonymously in media, newsletters and social media” box
During the campaign, if a young person ticked the “I’m happy for my story to be shared anonymously in media, newsletters and social media” box when they submitted their story, the Coop may have shared the story in the following ways. The story was completely anonymised so nobody would know who the young person was. If the story contained any names they were not shared. The original Lonely Not Alone social media channels were X – @lonelynotalone, Facebook – @lonelynotaloneuk and Instagram – @lonelynotalone, Tik Tok @lonelynotaloneuk These are no longer active