One in Four magazine

One in Four magazine has an excellent article about stigma.  Catherine Amey examines stigma from both sides.  The positive side of mental health stigma being challenged and the less positive side where an over-emphasis on stigma might be harmful for some people.

The One in Four project was conceived by Mark Brown and shaped by his personal experience of mental health difficulty.

The vision was to produce a magazine that inspires people with mental health difficulties to get the best out of life while challenging stereotypes and spreading information that would help everyone to understand mental health difficulty better.

Working with his colleagues at Social Spider CIC Mark developed One in Four as a magazine which approached mental health difficulty in a new way and challenged the stigma that people with mental health difficulties can feel; an aspirational lifestyle magazine covering common life experiences, ambitions and challenges in a way that is readable and relevant to all.

In December 2006, Social Spider secured funding from The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Charitable Funds to produce a pilot issue of One in Four to be made available free through community outlets such as GPs’ surgeries, public libraries and places of treatment.

10,000 copies were distributed and the magazine was downloaded 7,000 times from this website – an estimated total readership of around 40,000. Feedback from online and offline surveys and focus groups was overwhelmingly positive with repeated acknowledgement of the magazine’s high production values; 90% said they wanted to read future issues and 75% gave it an approval rating better than 8/10.

As a result of this response, Social Spider has sought funding and developed partnerships and trading activities around the project to enable One in Four to launch as a regular quarterly magazine distributed throughout England.

There is currently no other independent, professionally produced magazine in the UK which is written for people with mental health difficulties and is written by them. Social Spider believes in the potential for One in Four to bring about positive change in the lives of its core audience, their friends, family and carers.

Aside from the money raised through sales of the magazine and other services One in Four is currently supported by Comic Relief, The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, The South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Charitable Funds and the Wates Foundation.

Catherine Amey’s book 'Psychosis through My Eyes: A Personal and Professional Journey'  is scheduled to be available as an ebook in September 2011 from Chipmunka Publishing.