NAMI-Athens: Projects

In close coordination with State and National NAMIs, our local affiliate is very active in lobbying in behalf of people with mental illness.

Wishing to create a Ridges Cemeteries Directory which would help family members and other interested parties locate the burial places of individual currently buried under simple numbered gravestones, the Ridges Cemeteries Committee and NAMI (in a monthly meeting he attended) persuaded State Representative Jimmy Stewart to draft a bill allowing the disclosure of the identity of all individuals buried in mental hospital cemeteries. Stewart shepherded the bill through the house (with the help of testimony of NAMI members and others) and, having passed Senate, it became law in 2005. At NAMI's request, Stewart also introduced a "Medicaid Buy-In Bill" which, if enacted, will allow recovering mentally ill folks to work without losing all benefits.

NAMI Athens was very active in the campaign for the local mental health levy which voters approved in 2001. When there was a state budgetary threat to the local psychiatric hospital, Athens NAMI made sure there as a large turnout at ABH when the head of ODMH came to Athens to check things out . We, and other affiliates throughout the state, have helped turn out people for huge mental health rallies at the State House. And we are part of effective letter writing/emailing/phone campaigns. A recent success was the campaign to get insurance parity for people with mental illness. A seemingly hopeless cause as recently as 2003, parity was written into law in 2006 - and ODMH Director Michael Hogan attributed that victory to massive NAMI lobbying. Following that triumph, NAMI immediately began lobbying for the preservation of physician/patient choice in medication and for increased funding for recovery services.