Identifying distressing or offensive content

What is distressing? What is offensive?

There is no clear set way to identify material that you may find distressing or offensive. This can be a deeply personal thing, and as such, it is not possible to avoid interacting with this material entirely. However, below is a list to give staff an overall idea of some broad topics and material that our collections cover:

. Graphic surgery films

. Child Sexual Abuse material

. [IN PROGRESS]

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Things to think about

Beyond the categories above, it's useful to think about the following:

• Your lived experience

• What's happening at home

• What's happening in the wider world

• Your mental and physical health

All of these things have the ability to increase or decrease your bandwidth when working with distressing material in general, but also specific topics. It's important to take some time to assess the things listed above. This doesn't have to be shared with anyone. Instead, it can be something you do in private to help you predict how working with distressing material could affect you.

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Work-based factors to consider:

Similarly, the list below outlines different areas of your job, collection or task that can often be outside of your control. Assessing the things below can help you identify when you're at a higher risk of developing vicarious trauma:

• Your role - have you been hired to work on one collection or do you have variety in your job?

• Face to face work - you may be working with both material that's traumatic and stakeholders or users who are traumatised in relation to that material or the event that material was born out of. You could also be conducting oral history interviews. Any face to face work can increase the possibility of experiencing distressing emotions and vicarious trauma.

• Temporary contracts or deadlines - are there time pressures for completing the work or are you able to set your own pace?

• Volume of material - is it small or large?

• Subject matter - is it obviously distressing? Can you identify the likelihood of distressing material to be included in the collection?

• Existing knowledge of the collection - are you going in blindly or is there a box list or interim description that you can read before? Is there anything in the collection file?

• The form/medium - will you be reading first hand accounts of distressing events? Are there photographs? Will you have to watch a film?