We are pleased to announce that our next free, 10-week Peer-to-Peer Education Course will be starting Sunday, July 15-Sept. 16, 2012, from 10:00am to 12:00pm at our NAMI/PBC office, 1520 10th Avenue, No., Ste D, Lake Worth, FL 33460.

Peer-to-Peer is a free transformational 10-week course which allows peers to learn from other peers in a class/interactive setting.  It provides cutting-edge information about mental illnesses and brain chemistry, stress reduction, relapse prevention and advance directives for hospitals.

Please contact the office at 561-588-3477 for more information and registration.

We are pleased to announce that our next free, 12-week Family-to-Family Education Course is scheduled to begin Saturday, July 14-Sept. 29, 2012, 9:00am-12:00pm at 1520 10th Ave., No., Ste D, Lake Worth, FL.  Click on the “Educational Programs” tab above for information on this course.   Seating is limited. Contact  Liz at 561-578-1370 to register or to sign up on the wait list for our next course offering. This course is sponsored in part by the State of Florida Department of Children & Families.

Attention Mental Health Providers! ! !  The NAMI Provider Education Program is a free 5-week course that presents a penetrating, subjective view of family and peer experiences with serious mental illness to line staff at public agencies, case managers, therapists, mental health technicians, and anyone who works directly with people with severe and persistent mental illnesses.

The course helps providers realize the hardships that families and peers face and appreciate the courage and persistence it takes to live with and recover from mental illness.

How is the Provider Education Course unique? The Provider Course emphasizes the involvement of peers and family members as faculty in provider-staff training. The teaching team consists of five members: * Two family members trained as Family-to-Family Education Program teachers; * two peers 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 peer. Few teaching programs employ peers in this kind of sustained training effort in which they are paid to participate on a teaching team as they present a 5-week course. 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.

Registration is required.    This course is partially sponsored by the State of Florida Department of Children and Families and 15 CEUs are provided by the Mental Health Association of Palm Beach County.

Our next course offering begins Thursday, May 31,2012.  For more information or to register, please contact Liz Downey at 561-588-3477.  Seating is limited.