Dear Ally
We, The Dissociative Disorders Alliance (The DDA), thought it was a pertinent time to provide you with an update. If you have received this update directly into your email inbox from The DDA, it will be because you have already given us permission to add your name to our mailing list. If you have received it via other means and would like to be kept updated of progress, please email us at: theddaglobal@gmail.com with permission to hold your details on file. We will also post this update to ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) where you can find us @TheDDAglobal.
During 2023, The DDA’s Founders and the Working Group, all of whom are volunteers, met regularly to discuss and allocate various essential tasks for the setting up of The DDA. One of these tasks was the design and distribution of a questionnaire. We have had over 200 responses from the community and have begun to collate and analyse feedback. Community views are very important to us and your input will help inform our strategy and planning. Thanks to everyone who has completed it so far and if you have not yet had an opportunity to add your voice you can find the questionnaire here: What do you think? [edit: This questionnaire has now closed and we are grateful to everyone who has been able to provide us with their valuable responses.]
Our future Board of Trustees, which includes an enthusiastic mix of people with lived experience, practitioners and allies, met online for the first time in November 2023. Our future Trustees and the Working Group have been busy! Included amongst the many things we have been working on are: writing and formalising our constitution, developing policies and procedures, exploring how we fundraise for essential start-up costs, as well as creating a website holding page at www.thedissociativedisordersalliance.org.uk.
We are pleased to let you know that we have submitted our application to The Charity Commission! They have responded by asking us to provide more detail in some areas and we will focus our attention on this during our upcoming strategy and planning day.
We are hopeful The DDA will be the UK’s charity for those with complex dissociative disorders and their allies. Furthermore, we sincerely hope The DDA will help foster a sense of real connection and community around our cause. We strive to enable a community that is safe to turn to, to connect with and receive support from, as well providing somewhere to build your own alliances. We look forward to this community-led adventure very much indeed!
Best wishes
The DDA