Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy – NAAVoices.com

Last updated: 29 November 2025

Key Points (Non-Legal Summary)

  • We collect only the information necessary to run the site, receive stories, and enhance accessibility
  • We anonymise identifiable information unless explicit consent is given to share it
  • We do not sell or use your data for third-party marketing purposes
  • You can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your data at any time

Please read the full Privacy Policy below for the legally binding version.

1. Who We Are and Scope

1.1 NAAVoices.com (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a survivor-led advocacy platform. Our website address is: https://naavoices.com

1.2 This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect personal data in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1.3 This Policy applies to all visitors to NAAVoices.com and to individuals who submit information via forms, email, comments, or other contact channels linked to the site.

2. Information We Collect

We may collect the following categories of information:

2.1 Voluntary Submissions

  • Stories, testimonies, or case summaries submitted via forms or email
  • Contact details you choose to provide (such as name, email address, role/organisation)
  • Comments you leave on the site, including the data shown in the comment form

2.2 Technical Data

  • IP address, browser type and user agent string, device information, and pages visited
  • Cookies and analytics data to understand site usage and improve functionality
  • For spam detection purposes, we collect your IP address and browser user agent string when you leave comments

2.3 Media and Embedded Content

  • If you upload images to the website, be aware that images may contain embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors can download and extract this data from images
  • Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles) from other websites. These third-party websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with their embedded content

2.4 Sensitive Data

  • We do not intentionally collect sensitive personal data (such as health, sexual orientation, or child-identifying data) without explicit consent and a clear, lawful purpose
  • Where sensitive information is shared as part of a survivor testimony, it is handled with enhanced care, anonymised wherever possible, and processed only for clearly defined advocacy and awareness purposes

2.5 Gravatar

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to display your profile picture if you use their service. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture becomes visible to the public in the context of your comment.

3. Legal Bases for Processing

3.1 We process personal data under one or more of the following legal bases:

  • Consent – where you have clearly agreed to our use of your data for a specific purpose (e.g. publishing a testimony or leaving a comment)
  • Legitimate interests – for running and securing the website, improving accessibility, preventing abuse of the platform (including spam detection), and advancing survivor-led advocacy proportionately and responsibly
  • Legal obligations – where we are required to disclose or retain information by law

4. How We Use Information

4.1 We may use your information to:

  • Review, edit, and publish survivor-led content where you have given consent
  • Anonymise or pseudonymise content to protect you and others, especially children
  • Improve website functionality, performance, accessibility, and content relevance
  • Respond to your enquiries, feedback, or requests
  • Moderate and approve comments, and detect spam
  • Send updates or communications if you have actively subscribed (you can opt out at any time)
  • Process password reset requests (your IP address will be included in the reset email for security purposes)

4.2 Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

4.3 We do not use your data for automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

5. Data Protection Standards and Retention

5.1 We ensure that:

  • All identifiable information is anonymised or shared only with your explicit consent
  • Data is stored securely using appropriate technical and organisational measures
  • Access to personal data is restricted to those who need it for legitimate purposes

5.2 We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to:

  • Deliver the purpose for which it was collected, and/or
  • Comply with legal, safeguarding, or regulatory requirements

5.3 Specific retention periods:

  • Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue
  • User accounts: For users that register on our website (if any), we store the personal information provided in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except usernames). Website administrators can also see and edit that information
  • Article editing: If you edit or publish an article, a temporary cookie containing the post ID is saved in your browser. This cookie expires after 1 day
  • Testimonies: Where possible, testimonies and case descriptions are retained in anonymised form so that lived experience can inform advocacy and education without ongoing identification of individuals

6. Sharing of Information

6.1 We do not sell, trade, or rent personal data to third parties.

6.2 We may share or disclose information only where:

  • You have given explicit consent
  • It is necessary for safeguarding, law enforcement, or legal proceedings
  • We are required to do so by law, court order, or regulatory authority

6.3 Service providers (such as website hosting, analytics providers, or spam detection services) may process technical data on our behalf. Where this occurs, they are required to process data in accordance with UK data protection standards.

7. Cookies and Analytics

7.1 NAAVoices.com uses cookies and similar technologies to:

  • Understand how visitors use the site
  • Improve content, layout, and accessibility
  • Maintain site security and performance
  • Enable site functionality (such as comment posting and user login)

7.2 Types of cookies we use:

Comment cookies: If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies for your convenience. These cookies last for one year.

Login cookies: When you log in, we set up several cookies to save your login information and screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login persists for two weeks. Logging out removes the login cookies.

Browser test cookies: If you visit our login page, we set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

7.3 A cookie and privacy consent banner is displayed on the site allowing you to:

  • Accept all cookies
  • Reject non-essential cookies
  • Manage cookie preferences

7.4 You can also disable cookies through your browser settings. However, some features of the site may not function optimally if certain cookies are disabled.

8. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

  • Right of access – to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
  • Right to rectification – to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
  • Right to erasure – to request deletion of your data where there is no lawful basis for retention. This does not include data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes
  • Right to restrict processing – in certain circumstances
  • Right to object – to certain types of processing based on legitimate interests
  • Right to data portability – if you have an account on this site or have left comments, you can request an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us
  • Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent

To exercise these rights, contact:
Email: nurseagainstabuse@gmail.com

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how your data is handled.

9. Professional and Legal Disclaimer

9.1 This is a survivor-led advocacy platform. Content is shared for advocacy, awareness, and education under Article 10 HRA 1998 (Freedom of Expression).

9.2 All identifiable information is either:

  • Shared with explicit and informed consent, or
  • Anonymised or pseudonymised in line with data protection standards

9.3 Where individuals are referenced to document patterns of behaviour, this is supported by lived experience and accompanying evidence. The person who abused me and my children is not named on this platform. Any self-identification by a third party constitutes their own admission, not an assertion by NAAVoices.com.

9.4 Content reflects lived experience. It is not a substitute for legal representation, medical care, clinical treatment, or professional advice on safeguarding.

10. Where Your Data is Sent

Visitor comments and other submitted data may be processed by:

  • Automated spam detection services
  • Website hosting providers
  • Analytics services

All third-party processors are required to handle data in accordance with UK data protection standards.

11. Contact for Privacy and Data Queries

For privacy, data protection, or legal concerns related to this Policy, please contact:

Email: nurseagainstabuse@gmail.com

Accessibility Statement – NAAVoices.com

11.1 NAAVoices.com is committed to making content as accessible as possible for all users, including survivors, disabled users, and neurodivergent visitors.

11.2 We aim to:

  • Provide alt text for images and graphics
  • Use layouts that work with screen readers
  • Maintain high-contrast colour schemes and straightforward typography
  • Avoid unnecessary clutter and overly complex navigation

11.3 We recognise that accessibility is an ongoing process and welcome feedback. If you experience any accessibility barriers, please contact:

Email: nurseagainstabuse@gmail.com

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NAAVoices.com — From Survival to Voice

The Journey Behind
NAAVoices

Registered Nurse · Survivor · Neurodivergent · Founder of NAAVoices.com

If you met me at work, you'd see a primary care nurse getting on with the job.

You'd see the clinic lists, the assessments, the routine pressures of general practice. You might notice that I take safeguarding seriously, that I ask different questions, that I pay attention when something “doesn't quite fit”. What you probably wouldn't see is the path that brought me here — or why I rebuilt my entire life and this website from scratch.

This is that story.

The Question That Sent Me Back to University

I had already earned my BSc (Hons) in Nursing and completed multiple master's modules, as well as gained advanced diplomas in areas of general practice. Alongside this, I bring years of primary care experience, a foundation in acute medicine, and several years of experience working in mental health and child and adolescent services. Yet, despite this breadth of knowledge and dedication, my world came crashing down.

After years of coercive control and abuse, I finally left. What followed was worse than I ever imagined: the abuse continued through services supposedly there to protect, and then the family court, professionals looked the other way, and systems I trusted were used as weapons.

I found myself asking a question I couldn't let go of:

How can a human being choose to inflict such pain and suffering on those around them? How do they remain unchanged, unmoved by the harm they cause? How can deceit come so easily, as though truth were meaningless? How can they live without conscience, acting with cruelty yet finding rest at night?

It wasn't an abstract interest in psychology. I needed to understand psychopaths, coercive control, and deliberate cruelty because I was living with the aftermath of it. I wanted to know what kind of mind can inflict that level of damage and still perform “normality” for professionals.

That question sent me back to university.

I self-funded a Postgraduate Certificate in Neuroscience & Psychology of Mental Health. I did it quietly, alongside my job in primary care. Very few colleagues knew I was studying. This wasn't about promotion or a title. It was about survival and understanding.

No amount of academic theory will ever make intentional cruelty “make sense” in human terms.

But the course did something important. It gave me language, evidence, and a framework for what I had lived through. I learned about trauma, attachment, adverse childhood experiences, personality structure, chronic stress, and how the brain adapts to survive.

I am qualified in mental health, but my day-to-day employed role remains in primary care, with different clinical priorities. The mental-health training sits behind the scenes: it informs how I think, how I listen, and how I build this work, but I am not employed as a specialist mental-health clinician. That distinction matters.

Building on the framework provided by the PGCert in Neuroscience and Psychology of Mental Health, my journey shifted from solely personal survival to a commitment to serve others who are where I once was.

This led to further specialised training, including becoming a Certified Trauma Healing Practitioner, a Certified Narcissist Recovery Practitioner, and a Certified Neurodiversity Coach through CMA- and IPHM-accredited providers.

These qualifications are not mere credentials; they represent my dedication to transforming lived experience and academic knowledge into structured, ethical, and evidence-informed tools that I can share, ensuring this work extends beyond personal narrative to provide tangible, practical support.

ADHD, Masking, and the Shape of “Resilience”

At 34, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD — something I had suspected for years but never prioritised because I was too busy coping. Suddenly, a lot made sense:

  • My ability to hyperfocus through chaos
  • My drive to fix complex problems that aren't technically “mine”
  • My tendency to keep going long after most people would stop — until I crashed

ADHD had quietly shaped my career success and my personal vulnerability. It helped me advocate, absorb information quickly, and think laterally about systems. It also meant I masked distress and over-functioned for far too long, calling it resilience while my nervous system was burning out.

The combination of primary care nursing, postgraduate mental-health training, ADHD, and lived experience of abuse and institutional failure created a particular kind of clarity:

  • I could see the patterns
  • I could name the dynamics
  • I could track how systems were failing — not just for me, but for my children as well

The Day the Music Told the Truth

There was a point where the clinical knowledge, the qualifications, and the “I'm fine” facade all fell apart.

One night, I sat in a chair, listening to “I Am Not OK” on repeat for an hour.

I wasn't writing. I wasn't coping. I was rocking, dissociating, and trying to keep my brain from breaking under the weight of what had happened — and what was still happening through the courts and institutional responses.

Two months later, in September 2024, I was diagnosed with PTSD.

The label didn't shock me. It simply caught up with reality. Hypervigilance, flashbacks, sensory overload, the constant scanning for threat — all of it was textbook trauma layered on top of chronic stress and unresolved safeguarding failures.

At that point, writing stopped being a hobby and became something else entirely:

It wasn't writing — it was survival.

When Your Children Show You the Cost

Some memories don't fade, no matter how much time passes.

Their fear was a mirror. It reflected my own internal state — the same dread, the same hyperawareness, the same sense that danger could reappear at any moment.

These weren't “incidents”; they were symptoms of living in prolonged fear and then being failed by the very systems meant to protect us.

Those moments changed the trajectory of my life. They turned advocacy from something I did around my job into something that sits at the centre of who I am.

The Courtroom Where My Voice Didn't Count

Leaving an abuser should mark the beginning of safety.

Instead, I watched the family court become another arena for control.

I was left with a clear message:

You can be a nurse, a mother, or a credible witness. Yet, you may still be silenced when it threatens the bad reputation.

That level of institutional betrayal changes you.

The Moment Nurse Against Abuse Was Born

The night after court, I wasn't okay. I was struggling to hold it together.

My daughter was upset because she wasn't “the best” at something. I'd explained to her that everyone has different things they're good at, and she looked at me and said:

“You are the best at looking after people.”

When the systems around us wouldn't protect us, that sentence became my guide. If I couldn't make them listen to me, I could at least create a space. There, others would never feel that level of erasure. They would not be without a map in their hands.

During a period of severe mental decline, triggered by further police leaks and ongoing court proceedings, I realised something uncomfortable but undeniable:

If I kept trying to be heard in spaces designed not to listen, I was going to break.

So I did the only thing that made sense to my ADHD brain, my nurse brain, and my traumatised brain all at once:

I built something new.

Nurse Against Abuse did not start as a brand. It started as a survival mechanism.

From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices

“From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices” was never intended as a branding effort. It grew out of my own journey. Traumatised and feeling voiceless, unable to find the words I so desperately needed.

Traditional trauma therapies don't always fit everyone living with PTSD; for me, speaking was impossible.

Out of that silence, I developed a technique. It first became a journal for myself. Then, it became a tool for others who also struggled to speak but longed for help.

It began as a personal survival tool. Now, it has evolved into the From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices Collection.

  • From being overwhelmed and unheard to finally understanding what was happening inside my own brain
  • From surviving day-to-day to building something that might make the path easier for someone else
  • From having no voice to ensuring others never feel their lives matter so little to those who were meant to protect them

I love primary care, my patients and my work family. Though it is a workplace, it has always been the place I turn to when I am struggling. There, I could just be myself. Not a victim, not only a parent of traumatised children, but someone who can give others the care they deserve. My therapy is being able to serve others. It is where I was myself and where I can still be myself.

  • Work became my sanctuary when my home was no longer safe
  • My mental health qualification provides the theoretical foundation for what I share here
  • My lived experience ensures none of this drifts into abstract theory

Together, they underpin everything you see on this site: the blogs, the survivor tools, the professional resources, and the insistence that people deserve to be heard, believed, and properly safeguarded.

Why This Story Is Here

This page exists for one reason: context.

When you read my blogs about West Mercia Police, family court, coercive control, ADHD, PTSD, or child safeguarding, I want you to know the perspective they are written from:

  • A professional with lived experience and the qualifications and knowledge to support
  • A mother whose children have lived through domestic abuse and systemic failure
  • A survivor who has seen what happens when institutions protect themselves instead of the vulnerable

I am not neutral.

I am informed.

And I am still here.

If you are reading this because you are trying to make sense of your own situation — whether as a survivor, a parent, a professional, or all three at once — you need to hear this clearly:

You are not overreacting.

You are not weak.

You are not the problem.

And you no longer have to walk through this without language, without tools, or without a voice.

Amy Royle

Registered Nurse · Survivor · Neurodivergent · Founder, NAAVoices.com

🎓 Qualifications
🎓 PGCert Neuroscience & Psychology of Mental Health Distinction — Warwick — self-funded
🎓BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing — RN NMC
★Certified Excellence — Neurodiversity Coaching
★Certified Excellence — Trauma Healing
★Certified Excellence — Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
📋128+ CPD courses — self-funded
🧡 Lived experience
♡Survivor of DA & coercive control
🧠Neurodivergent — ADHD
👪Parent — children with SEN
📚 Published author
Publications →
🏠 NAAVoices.com
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Gender incongruence Mental health Rights & law Organisations & support
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Coaching & practice Founder's blog Not Broken — Amy Royle From Troubled Minds
Professional Resources
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Nursing & professional guidance

⚠ Crisis support

999 — Emergency 116 123 — Samaritans 0800 132 737 — CALL Wales
📚 Publications
Not Broken

Not Broken: Finding the Stars

📦 Amazon UK
From Troubled Minds

From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices

📦 Amazon UK
Gabby’s Guide

Gabby's Guide to Brainstorming Fun

Gabby's Guides collection
📦 Amazon UK
Gabby’s Guide

Gabby's Guide — Collection

Gabby's Guides collection
📦 Amazon UK
No Further Action

No Further Action —

⌛ Coming soon
View all publications →

A note on identity

NAAVoices was originally founded under a pseudonym to protect my identity. With time and healing I have come to realise that reducing stigma does not come from staying hidden — it comes from openness. Domestic abuse, mental health difficulties, and the need for advocacy happen to people from every walk of life. I am Amy Royle, and speaking openly is part of normalising these conversations so that others feel safe to do the same.