“Kindness, empathy, and understanding
must replace stigma in our hearts and minds …
It means teaching our children, so that if they are
confronted
with a mental illness in themselves, their families, or
friends and
neighbors, they aren’t afraid or ashamed to seek help.”
Rosalyn Carter
From her book, Helping Someone with Mental Illness:
A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers
published by Random House
In our School Outreach program, trained family volunteers provide
lessons in schools to help students, parents, and teachers identify the
symptoms and treatments of mental illnesses and their impact on society.
The Religious Outreach (Faith-Net) program educates clergy and
congregations about mental illness to reduce the stigma and
misconceptions that prevail in the faith community. The Public
Awareness Program provides NAMI Orange County speakers and information
tables at conferences as another outreach to the community at large. A
Speakers Bureau provides speakers to community groups.
Program Description
The School Outreach Program is especially appropriate for health, science, and/or psychology classes to educate elementary, intermediate and secondary students about biologically based brain disorders. A grade appropriate, interactive presentation, enhanced by visual aids helps clarify questions about some of the most commonly occurring serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and panic/anxiety disorder. Since the onset of many brain disorders occurs during these early years of development, our School Outreach Program aims to demystify the topic of mental illness. Trained volunteers from diversified professions and backgrounds, persons usually related to a loved one with a diagnosis of a mental illness, provide presentations in classrooms, school staff meetings, and parent meetings to equip their audience to better understand these diseases, identify symptoms, and seek proper treatment. We are now reaching about 8000 students each school year, as well as teachers, parents, and other school staff. We have reason to believe that some teachers are now teaching lessons on their own.
