This website has been designed by people like you. Its birth has been both traumatic and joyful and its inception has pushed all of us into areas we did not know we could go.  But let's begin at the beginning, its conception.

We wanted to start an informative and accessible website to share views and information with mental health service users and carers - not done in some corporate, bureaucratic way but done with a sense of humour. 

So, let's get the Home Page out of the way:

The medication bottles are a way of challenging the supremacy of psychotropic medication but rather than containing tablets, they contain useful information.

The hot air balloon tells you about guest speakers, many of whom may speak a lot of hot air - you judge! 

The train is a pun - it's describing who's online now. 

In short, we want to de-bunk psychiatry and to challenge all of us to think about mental health today.   Apart from the joy of being able to talk to people about what's important to them and sharing views and ideas, this website is being run by service users and carers for service users and carers.  The information is collated and downloaded by service users and carers, as is the management of the site.  In short, this has been set up to enable and empower people to run their own website and have a  voice that travels beyond the confines of East London.

Florid is funded by the East London NHS Foundation Trust who have been brave enough to hand over editorial control to people who use mental health services.  If, when you look at this site, you spot faults please bear with us, it is new to all of us.  What's important is that we work together on this journey and that we emerge into sunlight on the first day, blinking from the light but proud of what we have personally and collectively achieved.