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NAMI CCNS Education and In-Service Programs

NAMI CCNS offers several psychoeducational classes, for caregivers of loved ones with brain disorders (mental illness), for mental health professionals, and an in-service for educators. CEUs are awarded.

for more information or to sign up for the next course, call or e-mail the NAMI CCNS office at 847-716-2252 or executivedirector@namiccns.org

click below for info on these programs

parents and teachers as allies / public educational meetings / nami basics / family to family / provider education program

Parents and Teachers as Allies

This two-hour in-service program focuses on helping school professionals and families within the school community better understand the early warning signs of mental illnesses in children and adolescents and how best to intervene so that youth with mental health treatment needs are linked with services. It also covers the lived experience of mental illnesses and how schools can best communicate

The components of the in-service education program for school professionals include the following:

Welcome and Introductions – an education professional, who is also a family member, welcomes the school professionals and introduces the topics to be covered, often with a personal story.
Early Warning Signs of Mental Illnesses – a facilitator walks the school professionals through the early warning signs of mental illnesses, closely following the P&TA publication.
Family Response – a parent or caregiver of a child with mental illness covers the predictable stages of emotional reactions among family members dealing with the challenges of mental illness and the lived experience of raising a child with a mental illness.
Living with Mental Illness – a mental health consumer that experienced the early onset of mental illness shares a view from the inside, including a discussion about the positive and negative impact that their school experience had on their life.
Group Discussion
Closing Remarks and Evaluation

This program is designed for teachers, administrators, school health professionals and others in the school community.

for more information call 847-716-2252 or send an email request to executivedirector@namiccns.org

Educational Meetings for the Public

Meetings are every other month on the second Monday of the month from 7 to 8:30 pm.
Kenton Knox Conference Center, Skokie Hospital
9701 North Knox
Skokie, Illinois

call 847-716-2252 for dates and speakers, or see our calendar.

NAMI Basics (formerly Visions for Tomorrow)

This once-a-week for 6 weeks course provides caregivers of children, adolescents and young adults up to age 18 help with

Organization of data
Communication and caregiving skills
Problem solving/management and self care
Types of therapy
How to advocate for your child in your community and schools
IEP's and the school system
The juvenile justice system
Brain biology
Pediatric brain disorders such as ADD/ADHD
Autism spectrum disorders, including Aspergers syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder
Anxiety disorders
Depression
Bipolar disorder
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Eating disorders
Early onset schizophrenia

NAMI Basics covers many topics not covered in our Family to Family course, including ADD/ADHD, the autism spectrum disorders, childhood onset bipolar disorder, navigation through the school system and the juvenile justice system.

Class participants may be primary caregivers, parents, extended family or foster parents. It is a family, member-to-member course. Teachers are trained family members who have experienced firsthand the rewards and the challenges of raising children with brain disorders. NAMI Basics offers parents an opportunity to share mutual experiences and learn valuable lessons from one another.

Call 847-716-2252 for more information and to register.

Family to Family

This educational course for caregivers with loved ones having a mental illness includes up-to-date information on the following:

The major mental illnesses including schizophrenia, major depression, bi-polar, panic/anxiety, obsessive compulsive, borderline and any of these illnesses co-occurring with addiction
Related biology, medications and treatment
Coping skills for handling problem solving, crisis, recovery and relapse
Understanding and communicating better with someone having a mental illness
Self care
Resources
Advocacy

The course is personalized and enhanced by sharing experiences.

The 12 week Family to Family Educational Program is taught three times yearly:

Fall: September through November
Winter/Spring: March through May
and Summer: June through August

Call 847-716-2252 for more information and to register.

Provider Education Program

The NAMI Provider Education Program presents a penetrating, subjective view of family and consumer experiences with serious mental illness to line staff at public agencies who work directly with people with severe and persistent brain disorders. The course helps providers realize the hardships that families and consumers endure and appreciate the courage and persistence it takes to find ways to reconstruct lives which must be lived, through no fault of the consumer or family, "on the verge."

The Provider Course emphasizes the involvement of consumers in the challenging work of provider-staff training. The teaching team consists of five people:

two family members trained as NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program teachers;
two consumers who are knowledgeable about their own mental illness, have a supportive relationship with their families, and are dedicated to the process of recovery; and
a mental health professional who is also a family member or consumer

Few teaching programs employ consumers in this kind of sustained training effort in which they are paid to participate on a teaching team as they present a 10-week course.

The course reflects a new knowledge base, the "lived experiences" of coping with a brain disorder or caring for someone who struggles with this life-long challenge. Including this deeply personal perspective creates an appreciable difference in the program's content. It adds a means of teaching the emotional aspects and practical consequences of these illnesses to the academic medical information in the course.

In written evaluations and in focus-group surveys of their reactions to these classes, staff members reported that the course was fresh, relevant, helpful, enlightening, and emotionally overwhelming.

Participants felt that not only had their approach towards families changed, but that their understanding of consumers' dealing-with-life dilemmas had expanded as well. Almost every participant described how his or her own clinical practice had changed because of what was learned in class.

To read about the history and development of this course, see this inspiring piece written by Joyce Burland. Click here

Call 847-716-2252 for more information.