NAMI-Athens: Family to Family Education Course

Family-to-Family Education Courses

This is a twelve week series of free evening classes covering information about schizophrenia, the mood disorders (bipolar disorder /manic depression and major depression), panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder; coping skills such as handling crisis and relapse; medications; listening and communication techniques; problem-solving skills; recovery and rehabilitation; and self care around worry and stress.

Free for family members, partners and friends of individuals with Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression), Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Co-occurring brain disorders and Addictive Disorders.

Family to Family instructor Janet Polzer, teaching a segment of the course.

--Photo by Anne Walker

A series of 12 weekly classes structured to help caregivers understand and support individuals with serious mental illness while maintaining their own well being. The course is taught by a team of trained NAMI family member volunteers who know what it is like to have a loved one struggling with one of these brain disorders.

The course is free and is normally offered in the spring and fall.

Over 80,000 people in the U.S. and Canada have completed the course. We think you will be pleased by how much assistance the program offers.

You attend with other family members like you in a confidential setting. You learn about what your relative is actually experiencing. You learn how families unite together against this disability. You learn about the biology of the brain disorders known as mental illness. And, you take a fascinating look inside some of today's current research on brain disorders.

Learning about feelings, learning about facts
Schizophrenia, major depression and manic: diagnosis and dealing with critical periods
Subtypes of depression and bipolar disorder, panic disorder and OCD: diagnosis and causes; sharing your story
The biology of the brain: new research
Problem solving workshop
Medication review
Empathy workshop--what it's like to have a brain disorder
Communication skills workshop
Self-care and relative groups
Rehabilitation services available
Advocacy: fighting stigma
Review and certification

"Today I came out of a long, dark, endless tunnel into a room filled with light. the light was the NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program. This was surely created just for me. Yet, how could anyone know exactly what I was craving and hopeless searching for? How could anyone give me this wealth of clear concise information and wonderful insights and know the gamut of emotions I was feeling? How could anyone know the utter despair a family member feels when a loved one is stricken with such a monstrous illness as schizophrenia? How could anyone know and help me with my confusion and anguish? Certainly the professional mental health community could not -- it had left me to flounder in its inadequate system.

"But the NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program did know. It did understand. It did answer my questions and oh, so much more. thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for allowing me the honor of passing along this important program to other family members who languish, seemingly alone, as I did. Thank you."

Pauline Charton, a new teacher from Perryville, Arkansas

Classes are held at Appalachian Behavioral Health Center, 100 Hospital Dr, Athens.

A program about Family to Family was aired on WOUB AM in September 2006.

Click here to listen to the program.

To sign up or to receive further information, contact us at 593-7424.

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