National Alliance on Mental Illness

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NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, founded in 1979 as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, is an American non-profit national advocacy group for people affected by serious mental illnesses and their families. NAMI has advocated for the routine availability of evidence-based practices for the treatment of severe mental illness, such as assertive community treatment, which provides a full range of services to consumers around the clock in the community, rather than having mental health services limited to treatment centers.[1]

NAMI's programs include:

Family to Family, an educational program for the families of people with mental illness. Family to Family was developed by clinical psychologist Joyce Burland, who has a mentally ill sibling, and is taught by laypeople with mentally ill relatives.
Peer to Peer, an educational program for mental health consumers and led by consumers.
In Our Own Voice, a public anti-stigma campaign that affords mental health consumers the opportunity to speak to community groups.
Crisis Intervention Training (CIT): trains law enforcement officers on how to address the mentally ill persons that they encounter in their work
Provider Education, an education program for mental health service providers co-taught by consumers, professionals, and family members.

1 Family To Family
2 Membership
3 Contributors
4 Notes
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Family To Family

The NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program is a free, 12-week course for family caregivers of individuals with severe mental illnesses.

The course is taught by trained family members
All instruction and course materials are free to class participants
Over 115,000 family members have graduated from this national program

Family to Family course content includes:

Current information about schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder (manic depression), panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, and co-occurring brain disorders and addictive disorders
Up-to-date information about medications, side effects, and strategies for medication adherence
Current research related to the biology of brain disorders and the evidence-based, most effective treatments to promote recovery
Gaining empathy by understanding the subjective, lived experience of a person with mental illness
Learning in special workshops for problem solving, listening, and communication techniques
Acquiring strategies for handling crises and relapse
Focusing on care for the caregiver: coping with worry, stress, and emotional overload
Guidance on locating appropriate supports and services within the community
Information on advocacy initiatives designed to improve and expand services

[edit] Membership

NAMI claims to have over 200,000¹ members, offices in all fifty states, and 1200 affiliates across the United States.

[edit] Contributors

NAMI gets some unrestricted funding from the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly [2]. NAMI also gets unrestricted funding from other sponsors, as well as from its membership.

This allows NAMI the ability to support people with mental illness and their families thru educational projects such as Family-to Family and Peer-to-Peer, both projects taught by trained volunteer facilators. Both are offered at NAMI affilates and are free to the public.

NAMI is generally viewed as a grassroots organization, since it is run primarily by volunteers. However, NAMI regularly receives funding from the pharmaceutical industry, which also routinely dovetails its marketing messages with NAMI's in advocating for the destigmatization of mental illness. The industry trade group PhRMA, for instance, has collaborated with NAMI in promoting the movie A Beautiful Mind, "because the lines of communication were already established from previous initiatives,"[3] despite the fact that the real life hero of the story quit using all psychotropic drugs before his recovery from mental illness.

[edit] Notes

Note 1: NAMI membership is primarily by family; more than 50,000 families or individuals are members; the 200,000-person membership estimate accounts for additional individuals in families.