Family Education:

NAMI Family-to-Family
NAMI Family-to-Family (FTF) is a free 12-week education program for families, partners and friends of individuals with severe mental illnesses. This series of weekly classes is structured to help caregivers understand and support individuals with serious mental illnesses while maintaining their own well-being. The course is taught by trained family members who know what it's like to have a loved one struggling with one of these brain disorders.

Visions for Tomorrow (VFT)
Visions for Tommorrow(VFT) is a free education program that addresses many of the needs our families have when raising children and adolescents with mental illness. Taught by primary caregivers, VFT classes offer families a safe and supportive place to share experiences and learn from other adults who care for children and adolescents with mental illness. Primary caregivers include not only parents, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, and foster parents, as well. By providing education, empathy and empowerment, families will now have the tools to build visions for their family's tomorrow. Topics include types of mental illnesses and emotional disorders as well as instruction on coping skills, dealing with schools, and how to be an advocate. This program is taught in several formats; 8-week, 10-week or 3 weekends.
Program Downloads Link

Great Minds Think Alike-GMTA
(GMTA) is a free education program for youth, ages 12 - 17, diagnosed with mental illness. GMTA is designed to provide youth with the skills necessary to take a leadership role in their own recovery and to aid others who suffer from the symptoms of mental illness. Through GMTA, youth begin to understand their symptoms; positive and appropriate interventions for their symptoms; and through the interventions, a reduction in the stigma they face. GMTA also helps youth learn to cope with their diagnosis and find success in their daily lives. It provides an easy to understand workbook to learn from and refer to; opportunities to build relationships with other youth who have similar symptoms; and, despite the barriers, an approach to leading healthy and productive lives. This program is taught in several formats; 8-week, 10-week or 3 weekends.

NAMI Basics
NAMI Basics is a free 6-week education program specifically for parents and other caregivers of children and adolescents who have either been diagnosed with a serious mental illness/serious emotional disturbance, or who are experiencing symptoms but have not yet been diagnosed.  The NAMI Basics course is taught by trained teachers who are the parent or caregiver of individuals who developed the symptoms of mental illness prior to the age of 13 years.

 Partnerships
Partnerships, a self-help manual, is a family guide to mental illness, which provides valuable information to help readers understand, empathize and cope with the complexities of mental illness. This basic knowledge gives the readers hope and practical suggestions on where and how to seek help. Partnerships is also taught in group settings to family members, consumers and professionals. Partnerships is an impactful teaching device to hospitals, psychiatric hospitals and facilities, in-patient, residential care facilities, transitional organizations and facilities. Partnerships is available online at Amazon.com.

Consumer Education

NAMI Peer to Peer
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is a free 10-week, peer led, recovery education program open to any person with a serious mental illness who wish to live well in their recovery.  The course offers a comprehensive understanding of serious mental illness with topics ranging from stigma to relapse prevention to advocacy and much more.

In Our Own Voice: Living with Mental Illness
In Our Own Voice: Living with Mental Illness (IOOV) is a unique 1-1/2 hour public education presentation that offers insight into the hope and recovery now possible for people with severe mental illness.  Trained individuals with mental health challenges lead a brief yet comprehensive and interactive presentation about mental illness.  The presentation includes a video, personal testimony, and discussion between the presenters and the audience.  The testimonies put a face on mental illness while informing the audience of how people with mental illness recover and reclaim productive lives.

 Support

 NAMI Texas affiliates provide regular support groups for consumers, family members and others affected by mental illness.

NAMI Family Support Group
Formerly called the “Family-to-Family Support Group”, this support group meets on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.  Family members and friends receive support from each other by sharing their experience, strength and hope while caring for a loved one who has a mental illness.

NAMI Connection Recovery Support Group
NAMI Connection is a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly 90-minute recovery support group for people living with mental illness in which people learn from each others’ experiences, share coping strategies, and offer each other encouragement and understanding.  NAMI Connection groups are facilitated by persons who live with mental illness for other persons with any diagnosis who also live with mental illness.

For Professionals

Visions For Tomorrow Professional In–service
Visions for Tomorrow Professional In-service program offers 6 hours of continuing education training for professionals that interact with children or adolescents that have been diagnosed with a mental illness or who are experiencing symptoms but have not yet been diagnosed.  This program provides professionals not only with specific information about brain biology and brain disorders, but also communication tools and an understanding of how mental illness impacts the family.  In particular, it provides an approach to problem management that professionals find very useful when working with children and their families.

NAMI Parents and Teachers as Allies
The NAMI Parents and Teachers as Allies in-service program offers 2-1/2  hours of continuing education training for teachers and school professionals, helping them to recognize and identify early-onset mental illness in children and adolescents.  The presentation is conducted by parents and consumers who have had to negotiate mental illness within the school system.    

NAMI Provider Education
NAMI Provider Education in-service program offers 15 hours of continuing education training to line staff at public mental health agencies, taught by a trained 5-member team of family members, consumers and a mental health provider who is either a family member or a consumer.  This course emphasizes the lived experience of mental illness, expands compassion for the daily realities of this heroic struggle, and prepares staff members to practice a collaborative consumer/provider/family treatment team model of care.

Veterans

Operation Resilient Families (ORF)
Operation Resilient Families (ORF) is an education and support program for Veterans and their families. The program is an eight-session peer-led group focused on enhancing family resilience through a process designed to help prevent overwhelming readjustment challenges.  ORF teaches participants how to use communication and problem-solving  skills, and develop a  personalized Family  Resilience  Plan  for  use  in addressing their specific family circumstances. 
**ORF is not a traditional NAMI peer-provided program.  It is not a program designed for individuals with serious mental illness and is not available through NAMI Affiliates.  ORF, originally created by NAMI Waco, was gifted to NAMI Texas.  As a leader in providing peer-led trainings, NAMI Texas was selected to contract with the Department of State Health Services to deliver training to peer-led teams, consisting of a veteran and a family member with war zone post-deployment experience.  ORF is offered through designated community mental health centers across Texas.

For information on any of these programs, please contact the NAMI Texas Education Director
Patti Haynes
512-693-2000
phaynes@namitexas.org.