NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Queens/Nassau

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) is a grass-roots organization with more than 1100 chapters nationwide and hundreds of thousands of members dedicated to making a better life for all people struggling with mental illness and their families. (www.nami.org). Our local Queens/Nassau chapter offers many activities in support of this mission that include: SUPPORT GROUPS for people with bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety disorders and a variety of groups for families including one for parents of children & adolescents and NAMI’s signature program, Family to Family; EDUCATION including monthly meetings with speakers on a broad range of topics and a bimonthly newsletter; ADVOCACY on the state and national level on issues such as insurance parity, mental health reform, criminal justice reform, and stigma. NAMI Queens/Nassau also supports two special programs: THE FRIENDSHIP NETWORK (www.friendshipnetwork.org) is a unique service that connects people recovering from mental illness with one another for the purpose of friendship. BREAKING THE SILENCE (www.btslessonplans.org) is an innovative educational project for upper elementary, middle school and high school that puts a human face on mental illness and confronts the myths that reinforce the silence.