Best Practices for State Organizations & Affiliates

How to Identify and Attract Corporate Partners

Speakers: Morgan Sills and Mary Sorensen

Are you looking to engage new corporate partners? By joining this session, you’ll walk away with an understanding on how to locate companies, how to distinguish yourself among competitors and how to best present NAMI in front of corporate prospects.

Flashpoint: Taking Action to Tackle Rising Rates of Mental Health Crises and Suicide

Speakers: Dawn P. Brown and Megan Rochford, PCC-S

Now more than ever, the NAMI HelpLine connects with people in extreme distress or who feel hopeless. Many reach out while experiencing suicidal ideation, during a mental health crisis, or panic attacks. Some express threats of violence to themselves or others. It is a sign of our times. During this session, you will learn how you can help or best equip your NAMI HelpLine with procedures, protocols, and training that address these serious and urgent needs.

C.A.R.E. Together: Discovering A New Way to Promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Speakers: Amy Durham, Austin Messick, and Edward James Portillo M.A.

Cultivating Awareness Respect and Empowerment (C.A.R.E.) Together honors and invites cultural awareness and promotes inclusivity through shared experience while reducing stigma that surrounds mental health. The program is intended to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion that affect a NAMI affiliate’s local community. This session will teach affiliate members how they can adopt this presentation by outlining the mission, format, logistics, and how to deliver these presentations.

The Impact of Veteran Treatment Courts and How to Utilize Them

Speaker: Joel Ojida

Learn how and why Veteran Treatment Courts (VTC) were established. The will learn about the effectiveness of the court and its shortcomings.

I Want To Hold Your Hand – NAMI partnerships with Local, State and Federal Government

Speakers: Babu George Mathew, Ray Merenstein, M.A.M.C., and Morgan Medlock, MD, MDiv, MPH

NAMI Colorado and its partners have been key allies, conduits and advocates for advancing mental health resources at every level of government. Learn how NAMI’s voice can be heard from local advisory councils to State legislators as well as Governor’s cabinet and Attorneys General to U.S. Senators and the White House. This session includes volunteers, staff and public officials that also hone in on efforts to ensure that persons of color, rural, and others often marginalized are heard.

Embracing, Engaging, and Empowering Military and Veteran Caregivers

Speaker: Lisell Perez-Rogers, MA

Hidden Heroes and Hidden Helpers are the caregivers supporting our nation’s Veterans. These Caregivers play a critical role in the mental health outcomes of their Veteran, but often experience mental health and wellness challenges of their own. In this session, participants will learn:
– The role caregivers play in supporting Veteran health outcomes;
– The unique factors that contribute to caregivers’ mental health and wellness;
– Barriers to accessing mental health care;
– How to support caregivers.

Yin and Yang of Awareness and Engagement: A Simple System

Speaker: Parker Harrington

Learn how a small group (3 or more) can implement a simple, system to raise awareness across cultures and engage volunteers, donors and partners. It’s a streamlined, five-step process. Case studies demonstrate how the process works in any size community. Identify your priorities and calculate what’s truly doable for your team. Plus, there’s a role in this process for people living with a mental health condition, family and friends as well as volunteers, board members and staff.

Leading Change: Examining State Courts’ Response to Mental Illness

Speakers: Patti Tobias and Scott A. Block

Approximately 70% of individuals seen in criminal courts live with mental illness. Meeting the needs of the individuals served within the courts requires a collaborative approach and is essential to ensuring public safety and creating fair and effective criminal justice responses. This session will share the resources, tools, and best practices developed through the National Judicial Task Force to Examine State Courts’ Response to Mental Illness.

Building a Strong Bench: CEO & Board Succession Planning 

Speaker: Todd Donovan, Lt. (Ret.), MSLD

According to Board Source, in 2015, only 34% of Boards had a formal working succession plan. A written “planned” and “unplanned” succession plan helps protect your organization from instability and possibly collapse. In this session, participants will learn:
– The Board’s responsibility to provide a succession plan.
– Preparing for the departure: outlining responsibilities, maintaining the strategic plan, and supporting an interim CEO/Board President.

NAMI Provider: Sharing Lived Experiences with the Health Care Community

Speakers: Daryn Nelsen-Soza, MSW, LICSW, LCSW, Senior Manager – NAMI Provider and Dawn Grittmann, PharmD, CPHQ, Senior Manager, National Education Programs

This session combines NAMI Provider materials coupled with first person storytelling from individuals, families and mental health professionals regarding their mental health journey. This provides a platform for providers to be more empathic and compassionate as well as aid in a reduction of anxiety, stigma, negative attitudes when treating patients with mental illness .  The session will also provide strategies and tools for developing a diverse team of program leaders to use marketing and research to help implement and expand the NAMI Provider course into healthcare facilities and academic institutions.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
4301 Wilson Blvd #300, Arlington, VA 22203