FAMILY TO FAMILY EDUCATION PROGRAM
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)

The NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program is a free, twelve-week course for family caregivers of individuals with severe brain disorders (mental illnesses). The course is taught by trained family members. All instruction and course materials are free for class participants.

The Family-to-Family curriculum focuses on schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (manic depression), clinical depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The course discusses the clinical treatment of these illnesses and teaches the knowledge and skills that family members need to cope more effectively.

Family-to-Family classes are offered in hundreds of communities across the country and in two Canadian provinces. To find out more about the Family-to-Family program and class locations near you, browse through the categories on their Web site. And invite them to give a class with a small group in your congregation.

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NAMI has more than 1,200 state and local affiliates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Canada.

http://www.nami.org/index.html

GOALS OF NAMI’S BRAND OF FAMILY EDUCATION
by Joyce Burland, Program Director
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill

This fall the NAMI Family-to-Family Education course celebrates its twelfth year in the field. Developed by NAMI-Vermont in 1990, the course is now taught by over 2,000 trained NAMI volunteers in 43 states, four large municipalities, and two provinces of Canada. To date, 50,000 family members have graduated, and the project is constantly expanding across the nation. As one commentator on the NAMI scene said to me, “Wow! This program has really got legs!”
I appreciated the show-biz expression signifying that public enthusiasm and word-of-mouth can give wings to a project when it is “right for its time” and touches a submerged human need. Such is the case with NAMI’s family education program—the first in this century to reach out to thousands of family members on a continuing basis, the first to fully acknowledge the trauma and heroism in their lives, the first to lead family caregivers through pain and stigma to emotional understanding, clinical insight, healing, and action.
The NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program entrusts education to NAMI members who are, by any measure, the most advanced, self-educated lay population in modern medicine. The goals of this peer program are radical; they go far beyond the traditional curriculum of illness information and behavioral training. Although the course is rich in clinical detail, our primary mission in education involves orchestrating a transformation from personal devastation to action and power.
To serve this end, we have over the years defined our own brand of family education. Here are the specific features of the course that families tell us are life-changing:
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING AND HEALING (PERSONAL REALM)
Guaranteeing a safe, protective place where family members can debrief the traumatic events and feelings they have experienced (Speaking Pain); teaching the specific guideposts of the emotional process traumatized people go through in their process of adaptation and recovery (Normalizing); creating a group-bonding process that will encourage candid self-disclosure (Coming Out); helping family members understand the subjective experience of their relative with a mental illness (Empathic Identification with the Victim); providing teachers who have borne this personal trauma and have “come through” (Modeling); showing the way to put living-with-trauma into a life perspective that fosters self-care and self-realization (Restoring One’s Own Life-Line).
POWER AND ACTION (SOCIAL REALM)
Encouraging family members to recognize and express their anger at discrimination and stigma (Breaking the Silence); providing a premeditated, detailed “informational overload” regarding the neurobiological aspects of brain disorders to disconfirm learned stereotypes about mental illness (Consciousness Raising); modeling peer mastery of basic biomedical knowledge (Empowerment); introducing and practicing new coping and communication techniques (Assertiveness and Skill Training); releasing family members, through group support and mutual affirmation, from the gross misperception of their experience (Liberation); fostering self-respect and pride in families as exemplars of courage, strength, and perseverance (Solidarity); showing families a way to join the fight against social injustice by linking them with family advocacy groups on the local and national level (Activism).