What is NAMI Education Series?
NAMI Education Series is a program designed to better inform those who have or know someone affected by mental illness. How do we do that? By hosting and offering several presentations to our community!
Why You Should Attend:
The road to recovery can sometimes be a scary one with many unknown or confusing factors. Our goal is to provide information that makes this path easier to navigate.
NAMI Family & Friends is a free two-hour seminar that informs people who have loved ones with a mental health condition how to best support them. It’s also an opportunity to meet other people in similar situations and gain community support. The seminar is led by trained people with lived experience of supporting a family member with a mental health condition. They will walk you through the following topics.
- Understanding diagnoses, treatment, and recovery
- Effective communication strategies
- The importance of self-care
- Crisis preparation strategies
- NAMI and community resources
NAMI Smarts for Advocacy is a skill-building training that helps people affected by mental health conditions turn their passion and lived experience into skillful grassroots advocacy. A NAMI Smarts workshop engages participants in hands-on learning to build and strengthen skills to engage in issue advocacy. Whether someone is new to advocacy or has years of experience, people will leave the workshop with messages, step-by-step tools and the practice they need to feel ready to make a difference.
NAMI Smarts for Advocacy begins with its core skill: Telling Your Story. This module guides participants through writing and delivering a compelling version of their story that will serve as the starting point for their issue advocacy.
Once advocates have their story, it’s time to use it. NAMI Smarts for Advocacy includes several different modules:
- Policymaking 101
- Contacting Your Policymaker
- Meeting with Your Policymaker
- Medication: Protecting Choice
- Parity: Fairness in Health Coverage
- Budgets: Funding our Future
- Reimagining Crisis Response
- Advocacy Day
Past NAMI Education Series Webinars
NAMI Wood County offers pre-recorded webinars on various mental health topics. To request the link for the webinar, click on the yellow link titled "Webinar Request Form" below each description.
- Adult Protective Services
- Avenues for Autism
- Connecting a Loved One to Services
- Coping with Grief During the Holidays
- Financial Wellness
- Finding a Provider
- Guardianship
- Mental Wellness During the Holidays
- Planning for the Future
- Rural Resilience
- Spectrum Mental Health Care
- Substance Use Disorders
- Understanding Alzheimer's and Dementia
- You Are Not Alone
Jen Emahiser, MSW, LISW-S and Leannne Eby discuss how to connect a loved one to mental health services. Specifically, they provide information about how to approach a loved one, how to respond if a loved one is resistant to getting services, as well as various resources in the community.