In
July, 2009 an important mental health case was settled in
New Jersey. According to the Bazelon Center for Mental
Health Law, the terms of the settlement require the New
Jersey Department of Human Services to release hundreds of
people from the state psychiatric hospitals – often after
years of institutionalization – and to provide them with the
services they need to live independent, integrated lives in
the community.Read more
about the New Jersey Mental Illness Case and the results.
A few years
ago, Pat Rodbro, who is currently one of the co-presidents
of NAMI Cook County North Suburban, began discussions with
her local police department in Lincolnshire about an idea
she had regarding the village’s 911 call system. Wouldn’t it
be beneficial, she thought, if, when the police responded to
a 911 call from a residence where a person with severe
mental illness lived, they would already know some basic
information about the individual so as to be able to respond
appropriately? Read more
about Pat's initiative and the results.
As you may
have heard, State Representative Kathy Ryg is resigning her
seat in the Illinois General Assembly to become the
president of Voices for Illinois Children, an advocacy group
that works in Illinois to create better public policies,
programs and services for our children.
We will miss her. She has been a great voice in the General
Assembly for improving state mental health funding and
services.
How would you
like to attend a non-event fund raiser? That's right, you'd
help out a worthy cause (NAMI), but not have to get dressed
up and go to a fancy banquet hall and risk eating too much
(Which heaven knows I've done too often!) or risk drooping
your head into your chocolate mousse trying to stay awake
during some "less than exciting" speeches.
Well, on Saturday, August 15, NAMI Illinois is having a
Non-Event Event!
The idea behind mental health courts is to keep persons with
mental illness out of the criminal justice system and get
them into treatment. In a county with a mental health court
system , the individual is offered the opportunity to go to
a mental health court an alternative to regular criminal
proceedings.
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend the
second annual Mental Health Courts Conference sponsored by
the DuPage County Health Department and the Mental Health
Court Association of Illinois. The sessions were very
informative and showed that progress is being made toward
the decriminalization of mental illness.
NAMI Barrington Area is one of the supporters of a group
that is working to bring supportive housing for people with
mental illness to the northwest suburbs.
While it's too early to start counting our chickens, the
housing eggs seem to be getting ready to hatch. At this
point, our major hurdle is finding a site, and we're looking
for suggestions. Would you have any ideas?
On Saturday April 18, I
joined several area NAMI members at a rally for health care
reform sponsored by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), held
at St. Augustine College in Chicago.
Among the many things discussed by the speakers: One of the
first questions on many applications for health insurance is
"Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness?" If the
answer is "yes," you will most likely be denied coverage.
HCAN has a clear set of organizing principles to remedy the
situation, which they plan to use to help guide the
healthcare reform Congress is considering. I will outline
these principles in my column for this month. They have been
endorsed by 185 members of Congress and hundreds and
hundreds of state and national organizations, including NAMI
national and NAMI Illinois.
Illinois improves a bit but
major weaknesses remain.
NAMI’s national office has just released Grading the States
2009, its long awaited stateby-state comparison of mental
health programs and services. Illinois improved its grade
from the F it received in the 2006 Grading the States report
to a D in this year’s study. For NAMI’s capsule
summary of the data regarding Illinois:
click
here
Mary Holcomb, one of our Family
to Family teachers and support group facilitators, and I
recently made a presentation about NAMI BA and our
activities to the Van Gogh Group at Willow Creek Church.
While we were there I picked up several articles from a most
interesting magazine, Pine Rest Today, published by the Pine
Rest Christian Mental Health Services
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As 2008
comes to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to
thank all the people who help make NAMI Barrington Area
work. First of all thank you to our Family to Family
teachers, Maryrose Peters, Mary Holcomb, Elba Stewart, and
Carol Ziolo, and to the Family to Family assistants, Barb
Finch, Beth Ryan, Elba Stewart, and Betty Turner. This year
they have helped more than a hundred people deal with the
problems of their family members’ mental illness
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