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Interviews

How Stacey Dooley found a new way to talk about mental health

Understanding Britain’s Mental Health Emergency

Are You Really OK?

We are not OK... 
 
I've been fortunate enough to meet many remarkable people over the last decade of making documentaries - sometimes in incredibly hostile environments, where they've been really up against it - and I've seen the devastating effect that poverty, trauma, violence, abuse, stigma, stress, prejudice and discrimination can have on people's mental health. It has always been the common thread. 
 
Every week, 1 in 10 young people in the UK experiences symptoms of a common mental health problem, such as anxiety or depression, and 1 in 5 have considered taking their own life at some point. In this book, Stacey Dooley opens up the conversation about mental health in young people, to challenge the stigma and stereotypes around it. 
 
Working in collaboration with mental health experts and charities, Stacey talks to young people across the UK directly affected by mental health issues, and helps tell their stories responsibly, in order to shine a light on life on the mental health frontline and give a voice to young people throughout the UK who are living with mental health conditions across the spectrum. 
 
As well as hearing about their experiences directly, Stacey speaks to medical experts, counsellors, campaigners and health practitioners who can give detailed insights into the conditions profiled and explore the environmental factors that play a part - including poverty, addiction, identity, pressures of social media and the impact of Covid-19.

Stacey Dooley is one of the UK's most loved documentary presenters. Across her series, Stacey Dooley Investigates, she has examined a variety of topics from sex trafficking and under age sex slavery, to domestic violence. 
 
In 2018, Stacey was awarded an MBE for her outstanding contribution to broadcasting. 
 
Her debut book, On The Frontline With The Women Who Fight Back was a double Sunday Times Bestseller in both hardback and paperback.

On the Front Line with the Women Who Fight Back

Stacey Dooley’s bestselling account of her encounters with women fighting back around the world - now in paperback

The Sunday Times bestseller 
 
Over her ten years of documentary film making, Stacey Dooley has covered a wide variety of topics, from sex trafficking in Cambodia to Yazidi women fighting back in Syria. 
 
At the heart of all her reporting are incredible women in extraordinary situations: sex workers in Russia, victims of domestic violence in Honduras, and many more. 
 
On the Frontline with the Women who Fight Back, draws on Stacey's encounters with the brave, wonderful women she has met over her career to explore the issues of gender equality, domestic violence, sexual identity and, at its centre, womanhood in the world today.

Stacey Dooley

Conversations with Remarkable Mothers

"It was the first time I’d ever signed ‘Mummy’, and it was a goodbye letter." 
"I feel so honoured to have carried you both for nine months and delivered you safely into the arms of your parents." 
"I knew I had to be in that little girl's life. The next time I got out, I never used drugs again." 
"As a refugee, I say to my daughter, 'You have been born in a safe place. Never take that for granted.'” 
 
 
After having her first child, Stacey Dooley had a new understanding of what family means – but not everyone’s experience of motherhood is the same. In Dear Minnie, Stacey brings her trademark empathy and investigative skill to an entirely new ‘frontline’, exploring the varied perspectives of mothers of all experiences. Using letters that each mother has written to their child as her starting point, Stacey’s frank, honest, and moving inquiry takes in experiences from pregnancy to birth and beyond, uncovering the messy truths and different emotional journeys women take, as well as the common bonds they all share. 
 
Dear Minnie shines a light on the quiet selflessness, resilience, pain, trauma, grief, and joy of every kind of mother, to tell a story that transcends culture and geography, and speaks to us all.

Stacey Dooley

Books by Stacey Dooley

Articles featuring Stacey Dooley

How Stacey Dooley found a new way to talk about mental health

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