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SPEAKER
MEETING
At
the November 19th meeting of the NAMI Central Mississippi
Affiliate, Richard Courtney, Certified Elder Law Attorney and NAMI
member, will present Legal Rights
and Planning for Persons with Mental Illness. This presentation will
explain health-care decision-making rights and options, public benefits
(SSI, Medicaid, etc.), and family estate planning techniques that will
provide health-care and financial resources and security for persons
with mental illness and their families.
The
meeting will be at 6:00 PM, at the Saint Dominic Hospital, Lower Level,
Conference Room 1. Please
plan to join us. Light
refreshments will be served.
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MENTAL
HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK |
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NAMI
Central MS manned a display booth at the Canton Flea Market on October
8, in observance of Mental Health Awareness Week.
Volunteers from around our area took shifts during the twelve
hour event. The booth
was at 214 East Fulton Street, near the Old Madison County Jail Museum.
Numerous contacts were made and a great deal of NAMI literature was
handed out.
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The
Flea Market is the second Thursday in May and October each year and
draws a crowd of over 30,000. The Affiliate hopes to make this a
bi-annual event. If you are interested in helping out, plese
contact Ann Jensen at the NAMI office (601-899-9058) to volunteer. |
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NAMI
CENTRAL
MISSISSIPPI
CONSUMER COUNCIL
NAMI
Central Mississippi is looking for consumers who want to help our
affiliate become the true voice on mental illness in our area.
As the affiliate develops, we must have input from consumers.
In order for consumers to organize and have a consolidated voice,
we are starting the Central Mississippi Consumer Council.
The Council will act as an official advisory council to the NAMI
Central Mississippi Board of Directors. The
goal of the Consumer Council will be to advance the activities and
involvement of individuals living with mental illness by actively
participating in advocacy issues and affiliate development.
NAMI Mississippi’s
Southern Coordinator, Sandra Caron, has volunteered to act as Interim
Consumer Coordinator for the Affiliate until the Council finds its
footing and elects officers of its own.
If you are a consumer in our area and are interested in
participating in the Council, please contact Sandra at: 601-823-5588 or
namisandrac@yahoo.com. |
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OUR
FIRST
SPONSORED CLASS!
NAMI
Central MS is proud to be sponsoring our very first class, a Provider
Education Class set for September 21 & 22, 28 & 29, at Hinds
Behavioral Health (Region 9), in Jackson, MS.
Designed for clinical staff and caregivers who work in the mental
health field, the NAMI Provider Education Program presents an
insightful, first-hand view of consumer and family experiences with
serious mental illness and helps providers realize and appreciate the
challenges those consumers and families face.
This much sought-after course is the most expensive and
under-funded program offered by NAMI Mississippi.
““It’s the logical place to
start,” said Affiliate President Ricky Quinn.
“We spend so much time and money educating the public, only to
send them into clinical environments where they assume the
staff has been trained. Very
few people realize how few of the personnel at any mental health
facility are actually trained to work with the mentally ill.
Upper management, psychiatrists, social workers, and a few nurses
have training. The others
are people just like you and me, and they get their training right there
on the job. As a family
member, I know what that is like, and therefore I know how much these
people need NAMI.”
The
course reflects a new knowledge base -- the “lived experiences” of
people coping with a mental illness or caring for someone who lives with
a mental illness. 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.
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NAMI
VISITS COPIAH COUNTY
from
the
Copiah County Courier
August, 2009
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Representatives
of the National Alliance on Mental Illness met
with the Copiah County Board of Supervisors
Monday morning to raise public awareness about
the support services available through their
organization. NAMI is the nation’s largest
grassroots mental health organization, which
focuses on mental health education, support and
advocacy efforts. From left are Wendy Mahoney,
executive director of NAMI Mississippi; Ricky
Quinn, president of the Central Mississippi
Affiliate of NAMI; and Patsy Bush, Copiah County
attorney who completed the NAMI Family To Family
course. For more information visit the NAMI
website, www.namims.org or call 1-800-357-0388. |
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President Obama Signs
Children’s Health Insurance Bill!
February 4, 2009
President Obama
this afternoon signed in to law legislation reauthorizing the State
Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The
bill (HR 2) cleared a final hurdle today when it passed the House by a
vote of 290-135, after passing the Senate 66-32 on January 30.
The new law:
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Will cover
approximately 4 million additional uninsured children,
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Ensures that all
private sector SCHIP plans comply with the Paul Wellstone & Pete
Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 –
the new federal parity law.
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Is fully paid for,
primarily with a 61-cent increase in the federal tobacco tax
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Extends federal
support for SCHIP through 2013,
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Encourages states to
enroll children who are already eligible but not yet covered,
and gives states new tools to reach uninsured children,
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Makes sure that
federal funding goes to states that are using the money (to ensure
that the greatest number of children get coverage),
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Makes it easier
for people who are
U.S.
citizens to document their citizenship status by
allowing access to government databases (but extends the requirement
to document citizenship to CHIP, whereas before it had applied
only to Medicaid),
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Allows states to
cover children in families with incomes up to 300 percent of the
federal poverty level with full federal CHIP funding but does not
establish a "cap" on eligibility level,
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Requires states
to change the way they fund coverage for the parents of kids in
SCHIP after 2010. |
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Executive Director
of
The Office of Constituency Services
To Speak at Affiliate Meeting
Please join us for our first speaker of 2009: 6:00 PM,
Thursday, February 19, 2009, St. Dominic Hospital, Lower Level, Conference Room 1,
969 Lakeland Drive, Jackson, MS. Guest Speaker, Ms. Shannon
Rushton, Director, The MS Department of Mental Health Office of Constituency Services.
The Office of Constituency Services is responsible for documentation, investigation and resolution of all complaints/grievances regarding state and community mental health/mental retardation facilities that are received from individuals receiving services, family members and the general public. The Office operates a 24/7 Helpline for information and has recently added a Suicide Hotline as one of their services. Ms. Rushton will be giving an overview of all the services provided by The Office of Constituency Services.
Light refreshments will be served. |
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