Media and Arts

'A Funny Farm' by Cooltan Arts aims to give a grassroots voice to those using or involved with mental health services providing each other with support, advice and sharing experiences, it will also be a creative place, where you can put drawings, paintings, photographs, creative writing, music and spoken word poetry.

ClearerChannel is an online video project which encourages viewers to download and transmit video for social change. Check out Videos listed by group or topics. Then - get involved. Use their training manuals to create video and retransmit it via email, your website, blogs, myspace, youtube...

Cooltan Arts exists to inspire the well-being and creative participation of a diverse range of people through the production of quality art.

Based in South London's lively Walworth Road they have three workshops and a gallery.

Creative Routes is an award-winning interdisciplinary arts charity, run by the mad for the mad. Creative Routes celebrates and promotes the unique creativity of mad people, promoting mental well-being, and creatively campaigning against discrimination and for the acceptance of individuality in society.

Current TV is an online and cable tv station, also streaming user created content. This link will take you to the producer's training section, with many useful tips and examples what makes a good short factual film.

iPak is an auto-ethnographic and polyphonic narrative responding to scientific research which indicates that racism engenders mental illness; that consequently black people are several times more likely to suffer mental illness; that the very experience of living in the United Kingdom may almost drive black people mad.
The artist Ajaykumar was part of Testimony's series of exhibitions.

Joanne Ball directed the Testimony documentary film 'True Sanctuaries'.

London's Screen Archives is a new regional network supporting organisations in London that hold collections of moving image material. It helps researchers and the public find these collections and tries to ensure the preservation of important material made in or about our city.

Fiction by Maggie O'Farrell on three women's life stories around the closure of the psychiatric asylums.
Esme is sent to a mental asylum at age 16, not uncommon for wayward women in the 1930s. 61 year later, the asylum is being closed and her niece, Iris, is told she must come get her. Iris didn't even know Esme existed and takes her back to what had been the family home. She finds her aunt sane and articulate. When Esme finds that Kitty is alive in a nursing home, albeit suffering from Alzheimer's, she wants to visit her. The family secrets that led to Esme's incarceration might finally be exposed. Maggie O'Farrell's novel has received positive reviews with the New Statesman saying, "The haunting final pages are among the finest O'Farrell has ever written.

The media has a key role in influencing public attitudes towards mental health and wellbeing. The media also has a responsibility to ensure that the reporting of mental health issues does not cause harm. This particularly the case when it comes to attempted or completed suicides.

The National Programme has supported the development and production of a guidebook to help journalists report accurately on these matters, using appropriate language to do so