|
Home
Newsletter
Local Events
Family to Family
Support Groups
Advocacy
President's Desk
Carol's Corner
Brochure
Library
Criminal
Justice Action Committee
Financial Report
Thank-you
Membership
Contact Us
Emergency
Phone Numbers
Helpful Resources
|
President's Desk
by Hugh Brady
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!
July 2009
-
Mental Health Court News
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.
Read more about mental health courts and how the system can
offer better outcomes for lower costs
June 2009
-
CSH Housing News
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?
Read more about supportive housing
May
2009 -
News on health care reform
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.
Read more about HCAN's principles for health care reform and
how you can help them pass.
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
continue
We are not alone. Many civic
groups and other Illinois organizations have taken strong
stands on mental health questions.
One such group is the Illinois League of Women Voters. Their
platform on mental health issues is quite clear:
continue
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
continue
I have just finished reading "Divided Minds" by Pamela Spiro
Wagner and Carolyn Spiro. It is well worth reading. Pamela
and Carolyn are identical twin sisters who grew up in
Massachusetts in the late 1950s and early 60s. As they
entered their teenage years, one of the sisters, Pamela,
began to suffer from schizophrenia.
continue
There is the good legislative news in our Legislative
Update, and the good news from the NAMI Walk. Now here’s
some good news on housing:
continue
As of this writing the US Congress is back at work after
their convention recess. But when there are only three weeks
remaining before they adjourn for their planned final
adjournment. So NAMI’s national office and other advocacy
groups such as Mental Health America are beginning what
everyone hopes will be the final push to get the Congress to
pass mental health parity legislation this year.
continue
September 2008 -
Illinois’ Inadequate Mental Health “System” Costs Lives
Illinois’ broken mental
health system is costing lives, not only the lives of those
with mental illness, but of their families and others as
well. In July, a Cook County judge sentenced a woman, Mary
Smith, who has a mental illness, to life imprisonment in a
state mental health facility. Last year Smith, who had been
in and out of mental hospitals six times in the past several
years, set a fire in the stairwell of a Chicago apartment.
Four of the building’s residents died in the resulting
blaze.
I’ve just finished reading
Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health
Madness, by journalist
and best selling author Pete Earley. It is an excellent book
and I recommend it highly.
When Earley’s son was about 20, he was
stricken by a severe case of bipolar disorder coupled with
psychotic symptoms. Over a fairly short period of time, his
son got much worse and was eventually arrested for breaking
and entering.
continue
As you know, mental health
services in Illinois are abysmal. Permanent supportive
housing for folks with mental illness is almost nonexistent.
In fact, Illinois was one of only eight states to receive
the grade of F in NAMI’s recent state-by-state comparison of
mental health services. To fix the problem will take money.
Lots of money.
continue
I just finished reading an excellent book on how to help
someone who has mental illness: I Am Not Sick I Don’t
Need Help: How to Help Someone with Mental Illness Accept
Treatment by Dr. Xavier Amador.
I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is a book that
anyone who has a mentally ill family member or who deals
with mental illness on a professional level will certainly
want to read.
continue
|
