A Zine designed to be accessible to mental health service users across Scotland and the UK has been created by a group of learners in Fife. “The Voice: Utopian Visions of a Mental Health Future’ is an imaginative resource journal detailing learners’ experiences and observations of mental health conditions. Created by learners from the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) who attend Hearing Voices in Glenrothes, a support service provided by health charity Change Mental Health, the zine is designed to support anyone who is, or has suffered with mental health conditions.
The publication explores the landscape and culture of mental health services drawing on research, lived experiences and radical histories of mental health and offers a utopian vision of how mental services could be. Resources include relaxation advice, creative writing exercises, links to content from mental health activists, artists and writers and more. Read the full zine here or to download a version for yourself click here.
WEA tutor Keira Mclean said, “The zine is the result of an 8-week journalling course where the group came together and shared their experiences with mental health and the services available. We recognised many had struggled to find the right support and resources and had the idea to create a zine accessible to all mental health service users.. So much work and effort went into it and I’m so proud of the group.”
Funding for the project provided by CAPS, an independent advocacy organisation, has allowed the group to print physical copies of the zine which will be part of the “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” exhibition at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival taking place in October at Summerhall, Edinburgh.
