NAMI Provider Education Program - Teaching Those Who Serve Us

This program is currently provided by The Family Support Network Of Hastings and Prince Edward Counties.

About the Program

"The NAMI Provider Education Program presents a penetrating, subjective view of family and consumer experiences with 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 leaders;

• 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."

quote from the main NAMI website at nami.org

Who It's For

Although the program is designed specifically for direct service staff at public agencies, it is suitable for any person who could encounter people with mental illness in their line of work: doctors, nurses, paramedics, psychologists, mental health workers, teachers and guidance counsellors, ministers and priests, police, and many others also.

The program was professionally developed under the direction of Joyce Burland, PhD, and included a one-year needs assessment of agency staff at all ten Community Mental Health Centres in Vermont to determine the level of staff interaction with families, their attitudes towards families, and their openness to working collaboratively with families on the treatment team.  The Program has been presented, in the USA, to over 4000 mental health providers and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.

Where It's Offered

The Provider Education course consisting of 10 weekly classes is being offered in Belleville starting this March.  There is no cost to participate.  Classes are limited to 25 persons, so please register early.

For further information and registration, please contact Judy Brauner/Kim Matthews c/o Prince Edward Hastings Mental Health Services, telephone 1-613-967-4734.

Please Note: As the Family-to-Family course is running around the same time, it must be stressed that the registrants make sure they sign up for the appropriate course for them: Providers Course or Family-to-Family Course.

View Provider Course Outline