Publications

42nd Street has a number of publications which will be of interest to a wide range of professionals working in the field of young people and mental health.

StreetCred 2  Bernard Davies
£10.00

Insider perspectives of a young people’s mental health charity based in Manchester (UK) area: the ‘complexity and complication, contradictory pulls, pushes and tensions, often unnerving ebbs and flows – as these are the inescapable realities of work with young people under stress,the discussion of this work demands a sustained search for honest appraisal and critical and self-critical examination’. StreetCred Two follows on from StreetCred (2000) striving to present the values and dilemmas faced by a voluntary sector charitable organisation that is locally based and responsive to local needs. In this climate of the ‘contract culture’ and ‘austerity’, issues are explored as to whether an organisation like 42nd Street can remain true to its core purpose and values and in doing so the dilemmas it has to face.

Who’s Hurting Who? Helen Spandler
£12.45  (Out of Print)
This research report, based on intensive and often disturbingly frank individual and group interviews with young people, sets out to break down some of the barriers to understanding self-harm. It provides vivid evidence of how self-harming and attempts at suicide can have a range of functions. It throws light on the inability of helping services to sometimes accept and work with these explanations. It concludes with some specific insights into the kinds of services and response that the young people believe should be developed.
Who’s Hurting Who? provides no easy solutions. Rather, it highlights young people’s own ambivalence about their behaviour. It also explores the would-be helper’s dilemmas over how to offer support and protection in ways that respect young people’s autonomy.

Beyond Fear and Control – working with young people who self-harm.
Eds. Helen Spandler & Sam Warner
£14.99  Now £12.00 (+p&p) Seasonal Sale
This 42nd Street Reader is about supporting young people who self-harm as a way of coping with distress. It demonstrates why we need to give up the desire to control young people and simply stop them self-harming and why we need to start listening, supporting and empowering them to take control of their own lives. The book brings together practitioners, activists and service users from a wide variety of contexts who have developed new and innovative ways of working with young people who self-harm. It covers underlying issues such as abuse, neglect, oppression, discrimination and trauma-based dissociation. Beyond Fear and Control is written for anyone who works with young people who self-harm including those in health care, social services, youth work, therapeutic and legal settings. It is also essential reading for students and academics interested in this area.

Not Exactly Congratulations – a research publication exploring the emotional wellbeing of teenage mothers and the relevance of postnatal depression.

£5.00
This research was prompted by the experience of 42nd Street working with teenage mothers experiencing mental distress and by concerns raised by the Manchester Sure Start Plus programme. The report contains practical recommendations for improved service delivery and contains learning that will be of value to both frontline workers and policy makers. The research was funded and supported by Manchester City Council Joint Health Unit.

Street Cred? Bernard Davies

£6.00 
In Street Cred? Bernard Davies offers a critical account of key themes in the development of 42nd Street.
This is determinedly not a self-congratulatory historical account of the growth of the agency. By illuminating the dilemmas faced on a day-to-day basis it seeks to provoke a wider debate about how the values, the purposes and principles underpinning the work and the reasons for choosing them can be sustained within services for young people in the face of external and conflicting pressures.
As such, it offers much to policy makers, managers and practitioners not just of mental health services for young people, but of all services which aspire to be accessible and responsive to young people’s needs.

In and Out of Harm’s Way by Alex £3.00
“Hi, my name’s Alex. I am a fictional young person who’s been created by young people as part of a training project designed to explore issues around suicide and self-harm. Alex is a mask we can wear when we’re telling the truth, but feel ashamed to admit that these are our own individual experiences. I am a young person wearing that mask. These are my personal experiences. Today I am Alex and I want to talk to you about self-harm.”
In this innovative and straightforward account young people explore issues relating to self-harm and suicide through prose, poetry and art. This short booklet has much to offer young people who are self harming and those who seek to support them as parents, friends and professionals.

Download 42nd Street Publications order form