Parents & Teachers as Allies

What is Parents and Teachers as Allies?

NAMI is delighted to announce the expansion of our Parents & Teachers as Allies program, an hour or 90 minute in-service mental health education program for school personnel, parents and the community. It is designed to better understand the early warning signs of mental illnesses in children and adolescents. It also covers the lived experience of mental illnesses and how schools can best communicate with families about mental health related concerns. There is no charge for our program.

This program responds to the recommendations included in Goal 4 of President Bush’s New Freedom Commission report on mental health. This report calls for schools to play a larger role in the early identification of mental health treatment needs in children and in linking them to appropriate services. Our program is based on NAMI’s highly successful Parents and Teachers as Allies (PTasA) publication.

Components of the in-service education program include the following:

Welcome and Introductions – an education professional welcomes the school professionals and introduces the topics to be covered, often with a personal story.
Early Warning Signs of Mental Illnesses – a facilitator walks the audience through the early warning signs of mental illnesses, closely following the PTasA publication.
Family Response – a parent or caregiver of a child with mental illness covers the predictable stages of emotional reactions among family members dealing with the challenges of mental illness. The lived experience of raising a child with a mental illness is explained.
Living with Mental Illness – an individual that experienced the early onset of mental illness shares a view from the inside, including a discussion about the positive and negative impact that their school experience had on their life.
Group Discussion
Closing Remarks and Evaluation

This program is designed for teachers, administrators, school health professionals, parents and others in the community. The program is designed to target schools in urban, suburban, rural, and culturally diverse communities. The toolkit is being developed to be culturally sensitive and will soon include a Spanish language version.

For more information about this program or to request a presentation, please call:

Judi Maikoff
Parents & Teachers as Allies Coordinator
(520) 622-5582, ext. 110
jmaikoff@namisa.org