1. Purpose

The Mental Health Knowledge Hub exists to improve public understanding, reduce stigma, support informed help-seeking and connect people with practical resources and professional care.

2. Editorial principles

• Accuracy: Important claims must be supported by credible evidence or clearly identified as expert opinion, lived experience or emerging research.
• Accessibility: Clinical terminology is explained in plain UK English.
• Respect: Content protects the dignity of people experiencing mental health difficulties.
• Cultural relevance: Kenyan and African realities are considered without treating one experience as universal.
• Balance: Benefits, risks, limitations and uncertainty are explained where relevant.
• Actionability: Content should give readers realistic next steps.

3. Editorial independence

Topics are selected according to public need, clinical relevance and Convo Africa’s social mission. Advertisers, sponsors, partners or service providers may not determine clinical conclusions or suppress material risks.

4. Authorship and artificial intelligence

Clinical and health-related pages should identify the writer, clinical reviewer, publication date and review date. Artificial intelligence may assist research organisation, editing or formatting, but it is not treated as an authoritative clinical source and its output is not published without human review.

5. Personal stories

Lived-experience stories require informed consent. Contributors may request anonymity or a pseudonym. Stories must not reveal another person’s private health information without permission and may not be presented as proof that a treatment works for everyone.

6. Commercial content

Convo Africa may direct readers to relevant services, including the e-Therapy therapist directory. Such references must be proportionate, transparent and free from fear-based selling or guaranteed outcomes.

7. Prohibited practices

• Fabricated evidence, quotations, statistics or credentials.
• Plagiarism or undisclosed copying.
• Diagnostic claims about identifiable people.
• Guaranteed treatment outcomes.
• Advice to stop prescribed treatment without consulting a qualified professional.
• Sensational, graphic or instructional content about suicide, self-harm or violence.
• Stigmatising or dehumanising language.

8. Review schedule

High-risk clinical, screening, treatment and crisis content should be reviewed at least every 12 months. General educational content should be reviewed at least every 24 months, or earlier when evidence, guidance, law or safety considerations materially change.

1. Content requiring review

Clinical review is required for content discussing symptoms, diagnosis, screening, treatment, medication, suicide, self-harm, trauma, substance use, vulnerable populations, crisis response or claims that could materially influence a person’s health decisions.

2. Reviewer competence

Reviewers must hold appropriate qualifications and only approve material within their professional competence. Depending on the topic, reviewers may include psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, psychiatric nurses, licensed counsellors, social workers, pharmacists or other appropriately regulated professionals.

3. Review criteria

• Clinical claims are accurate and adequately referenced.
• Ordinary distress is distinguished from a disorder where appropriate.
• No single symptom or score is presented as a diagnosis.
• Treatment options are presented fairly, with material risks and limitations.
• Urgent warning signs and escalation routes are included where needed.
• The language is respectful, trauma-informed and suitable for the audience.
• Education, screening, assessment and diagnosis are clearly distinguished.

4. Review outcomes

A reviewer may approve the content, approve it subject to changes, request stronger evidence, refer it to another specialist, reject publication or recommend removal of existing material.

5. Conflicts of interest

Reviewers must disclose financial, professional or personal interests that could reasonably affect their judgement. A reviewer should not be the sole approver of content promoting their own paid service or a product from which they benefit.

6. Re-review

Fresh review is required when significant clinical claims change, new guidance becomes applicable, a screening tool changes, a serious correction is made or the scheduled review date is reached.

1. Reporting a concern

Readers and professionals may report an error by emailing contact@convo.africa. A report should ideally include the page link, the information believed to be wrong, the reason for concern and any supporting source.

2. Types of correction

Minor correction

Spelling, grammar, formatting, broken links and accessibility changes that do not alter meaning may be corrected without a public notice.

Substantive correction

Errors involving clinical facts, statistics, treatment, screening, professional qualifications, legal information or crisis advice should be recorded through an update or correction note.

Serious safety correction

Potentially harmful content may be restricted or unpublished immediately while it is reviewed.

3. Correction process

1. Assess the concern and the potential level of harm.
2. Review the original evidence and any new supporting material.
3. Seek clinical, legal or data-protection input where necessary.
4. Correct, clarify, update, restrict or remove the content.
5. Add a visible note where the change is material.
6. Update the review date and internal record.

4. Correction notices

A notice should explain what was inaccurate or unclear, what changed, when it changed and whether the article’s overall conclusion was affected.

5. Retractions and removals

Content may be removed when its central claims are unreliable, it breaches privacy or copyright, it creates unacceptable safety risk, or it contains fabricated or plagiarised material.

1. Evidence hierarchy

Writers should prioritise current Kenyan laws and official guidance, World Health Organization material, recognised clinical guidelines, systematic reviews, peer-reviewed research, professional bodies, original screening manuals and high-quality African evidence.

2. Source selection

• Current guidelines over unsourced summaries.
• Systematic reviews over isolated studies.
• Original studies over media reports about those studies.
• Official statistics over secondary commentary.
• Primary legal texts over blog interpretations.
• Original screening manuals over copied online versions.

3. Recency

Treatment guidance should normally use the most current applicable source. Statistics must state their year or data period. Older foundational research may be retained where it remains valid.

4. Citation format

A reference should include the author or organisation, year, title, journal or issuing body, relevant publication details and a DOI or direct source link where available.

5. Diagnostic manuals

Diagnostic criteria may be summarised within copyright permissions, but must not be presented as a self-diagnosis checklist. Diagnosis requires professional assessment, clinical judgement, context and consideration of alternative explanations.

6. Statistics

Statistics must identify the population, geography and period. Global data must not be represented as Kenyan data, and correlation must not be described as causation.

7. Sources not used as sole clinical evidence

• Anonymous social media posts.
• Influencer content.
• Unreferenced commercial pages.
• Marketing materials.
• Artificial intelligence outputs.
• Testimonials and individual anecdotes.
• Search-result summaries or editable encyclopaedias.

1. Purpose of screening

Screenings are designed to support reflection, increase awareness, encourage appropriate help-seeking and help users prepare for a conversation with a professional.

2. What screening cannot do

• Confirm or rule out a diagnosis.
• Determine treatment or medication.
• Provide medical, legal or occupational clearance.
• Assess whether a person is safe.
• Replace professional risk assessment.
• Generate an emergency response.

3. Interpreting results

Results must use cautious language such as “your responses suggest” or “this score falls within a range associated with”. A low score does not prove that a person has no mental health difficulty.

4. Factors affecting a score

Stress, physical illness, medication, substance use, sleep, recent events, grief and other conditions can influence responses. A professional assessment considers symptoms alongside history, functioning, circumstances and other possible explanations.

5. Risk-related responses

If a screening asks about suicide, self-harm, abuse, violence, psychosis or immediate danger, urgent-support guidance must appear regardless of the total score. Users must not assume that responses are actively monitored.

6. Children and adolescents

Age limits, respondent instructions, consent expectations and safeguarding information must be stated clearly. Results involving a young person should be discussed with an appropriately qualified professional.

7. Professional support

Users may discuss their symptoms or results with a qualified professional through the Convo Africa e-Therapy therapist directory or another provider of their choice.

1. Scope

This policy covers data collected through screening tools, contact forms, newsletters, resource downloads, feedback forms, website analytics, cookies and referrals to Convo Africa services.

2. Data-protection principles

Convo Africa applies the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, limited retention, confidentiality and accountability.

3. Information that may be collected

• Information submitted through forms or communications.
• Email addresses supplied for requested resources or updates.
• Screening answers and scores, where the tool stores them.
• General device, browser and website-use information.
• Consent and preference records.

4. Screening data

Before a screening begins, users should be told whether responses are anonymous, whether they are stored, why they are collected, how long they are retained, who may access them and whether they trigger human review.

5. Sensitive information

Mental health information is sensitive. Access should be restricted, unnecessary clinical detail avoided, and appropriate security and confidentiality controls applied.

6. Cookies, analytics and advertising

Non-essential cookies should be subject to meaningful choice where required. Sensitive screening answers must not be exposed through advertising pixels, public URLs or insecure analytics events.

7. Data sharing

Information may be shared only where reasonably necessary and legally permitted, including with authorised personnel, technology service providers, professionals requested by the user, regulators or emergency responders where disclosure is justified to protect life.

8. Retention and user rights

Personal information is retained only as long as reasonably necessary. Subject to applicable law, users may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection or withdrawal of consent by contacting contact@convo.africa.

9. No continuous crisis monitoring

Screening responses, email and website forms are not continuously monitored unless expressly stated. Completing a public screening does not alert a therapist or emergency service.

1. Purpose

Crisis content should educate responsibly, reduce harm, promote help-seeking and avoid material that could encourage imitation, concealment or escalation.

2. Required editorial approach

• Use calm, direct and compassionate language.
• Emphasise that support and treatment are available.
• Give clear options for urgent human assistance.
• Encourage connection with a trusted person or professional.
• Include warning signs and recovery-oriented information where relevant.
• Require review by an appropriately qualified mental health professional.

3. Prohibited content

• Detailed descriptions of suicide or self-harm methods.
• Comparisons of lethality or effectiveness.
• Graphic images, suicide notes in full or instructional material.
• Romanticising, glorifying or presenting suicide as inevitable.
• Instructions for concealment or avoiding detection.
• Sensational headlines, imagery or engagement tactics.
• Public speculation about an identifiable person’s diagnosis.

4. Language standard

Use “died by suicide”, “suicide attempt”, “person experiencing suicidal thoughts” and “self-harm”. Avoid criminalising, shaming, challenging or guilt-based language.

5. Personal stories and images

Stories require informed consent, must avoid method detail and should include support or recovery context where possible. Images must not depict methods, graphic injuries or identifiable vulnerable people without appropriate consent.

6. User-generated content

Convo Africa may remove comments or submissions that provide methods, encourage harm, contain graphic content, identify a vulnerable person or harass someone in distress.

7. Internal escalation

1. Take credible indications of immediate danger seriously.
2. Avoid promising absolute confidentiality.
3. Gather only information reasonably needed to understand immediate risk.
4. Encourage emergency care and trusted-person support.
5. Escalate to the designated clinical or safeguarding lead.
6. Document the response securely and remain within professional scope.

8. Crisis resource maintenance

Emergency contacts and support information must be checked regularly. Inactive, inaccurate or misleading crisis contacts should be removed immediately.