2014 NAMI FaithNet Mini-Grant Recipients
Mid Year and Final Reports Included
Italics = previous grant recipients
Affiliate / Grant Type / Contact Person / Contact Information / Proposal / Goals / Mid-year Repot Rec’d / Final Report Rec’d
NAMI Omaha
Omaha, Nebraska / Capacity Building / Timothy Wilkinson / (402) 932-7354
/ Faith outreach has been made a priority for 2014. Would like to begin setting the ground work to reach out to local faith communities. / Expects to train for core members on Reaching out and Bridges. Those members will create a survey to be sent out to 50 churches. Hope to receive 3 inquiries to present Bridges…. / 11/11/14: Hosted two presentations and two conferences; involving a Lutheran church and one at a CMA. 25 and 15 attendees at the presentations. 45 and 85 attendees at the conferences. Plan to follow up with new contacts the initiative generated. Plan to use Bridges for future outreach.
NAMI Wayne/Holmes County
Wooster, Ohio / Enhanced Outreach / Patty
Fitzwater / (330) 264-1590
/ Hold two separate events geared toward faith leaders / 1) Plans to host a brunch for 20-30 clergy using NFN tools with the goal of education and stigma reduction.
2) Plan to create appropriate literature for 100 faith leaders, including 15 Amish bishops. / Affiliate developed and delivered literature to 119 clergy and Amish Bishops. Plan to follow up with letters, phone calls, and an invitation to brunch (in Oct.) to discuss community resources. / 10/23/14:
Hosted two events, a brunch and a dinner; with a total of 40 faith community members participating. Open to all faiths with special outreach to Amish. Actively encourage people to become members.
NAMI Howard County
Columbia, MD / Enhanced Outreach / Beverly Francis-Gibson / (410) 772-9300
/ Would like to strengthen relationship with churches involved in Sunday suppers. They will assign a NFN committee member to act as a liaison with each church. Planning a box lunch in June for all congregations involved in Sunday Suppers. Congregation representatives will meet their liaison and brainstorm ways to further engage with church. / Hope to strengthen relationship with all 13 congregations that currently host suppers.
Would like to offer at least 10% more presentations to congregations in 2014.
Hope that they will gain new speakers and new members from better connections with faith communities / Currently reaching out to strengthen relationship with faith communities that are involved with Sunday Suppers. Hopes that with further outreach affiliate will be able to offer education to the faith community and develop new support groups. / 10/28/14:
Hosted a Faith in Action Luncheon for all congregations that their identified liaisons have been working with. Each faith leader received a packet of info and resources, including NFN brochure.
NAMI Genesee County
Linden, MI / Capacity Building / Ramona Deese / (810) 735-4935
/ Has already worked with NAMI Michigan to offer a presentation to “Concerned Pastors for Social Action”. The affiliate wants to expand on this outreach. / Affiliate has 50 members and plans to train 3 volunteers using Reaching Out and then Bridges. Hope to use Bridges to make 2 presentations by September. Will use grant funds for materials and postage to reach out to Social Action members. / 11/10/14:
1) Completed 4 mailings to ministers. 2) Participated in Hope and Health in the Community events. 3) Spoke at one church service. 4) Will be offering F2F at non-denominational church in 2015.
NAMI Upper Valley
Idaho Falls, ID / Capacity Building / Sheila
Keefe / (208) 830-8336
/ Affiliate intends to create a 4 member outreach team who will train using Reaching out and Bridges. They will then report back to the Board to create an outreach plan. / The affiliate will identify 4 members to complete training in faith outreach. These members will report back to the board to create an outreach plan. Affiliate hopes to create a contact list of diverse faith communities (6 or more denominations). / 11/3/14:
Spend bulk of funds on pamphlets to hand out at event. Event scheduled for 95 people on 10/5/14. Trained 7 people to be part of rotating presenters. Hope to expand outreach to 10 counties in Idaho.
NAMI Four County
Archbold, OH / Enhanced Outreach / Louis Levy / (419) 267-3355 ext. 3
/ Small affiliate with no paid staff and 64 members. They would like to create a more formal outreach to faith leaders. Up until now they have done some “inefficient” outreach without much of a methodical approach. Would like to use funds to create a formal plan. / They will identify 7-8 volunteers, with a minimum of one from each county they serve.
Volunteers will create contact list of congregations in their county and reach out to them for a meeting to discuss MI and resources.
Hope to recruit pastor “champions” who will help expand outreach. / Affiliate has collected contact info for all clergy associations in their community, have met with 3 pastors. Building a database of local faith leaders. Currently has MH 1st Aid presentation scheduled for 9/17. Has also offered 2 presentations at newly identified churches. / 11/6/14:
Conducted mental health first aid training to clergy and lay leaders. 25 attendees. Training will be repeated in the Spring. Affiliates intends to keep checking in with attendees for further opportunities for partnership.
NAMI North Dakota
Grand Forks, ND / Capacity Building / Barb Dahlen / (701) 757-0282
/ Bring together a group of individuals to help determine the feasibility of faith outreach in the Grand Forks area. / Plans to train 4 individuals to be the FaithNet team. Team members will complete training with Reaching Out and Bridges; will then come together to discuss long term plan. / 11/2/14:
4 affiliate members completed Reaching out training. Intend to come together to discuss feasibility of moving forward on faith outreach in the future.
NAMI Illinios
Springfield, IL / Enhanced Outreach / Lora Thomas /
(217) 522-1403 / Already working with Pathways to create materials/messages for faith communities which will be made available to affiliates. Hope to be used for Mental Health Awareness Month / Hope to offer a networking opportunity for all affiliates on faith outreach. Following the event they hope that 5 affiliates will commit to faith outreach in their county.
Additionally, they will offer an educational workshop for their fall conference to further prepare affiliates and community members to begin outreach in 2015.
NAMI Thurston/Mason
Lacey, WA / Enhanced Outreach / Sue Allen /
(415) 515-9376 / Would like to expand their outreach into the Jewish community. Would like to look at what faith communities they currently have a relationship with who may be willing to host and faith based support group.
Plan to provide some technical support to another nearby affiliate who is just starting faith outreach. / 1) Hope to host a presentation at 1 synagogue by June 2014. Hope to train 2-4 volunteers for this presentation. Hoping to have 10-18 participants
2) By October 2014 they would like to have reached out to congregations to gauge interest in offering a faith based support group.
3) Host a training and presentation of Bridges to the Grays Harbor County NAMI and their community by 2014. / Affiliate has may contact with a Rabbi, has formal meeting 8/22 to discuss material, invitations, formalize date. Working with NAMI Grays Harbor to train their staff/volunteers to conduct faith outreach.
NAMI Rensselaer
West Sand Lake, NY / Basic Outreach / Mary Beth Honsinger /
(518) 588-6949 / Planning to offer an event at SUNY Albany through the school of public health. Affiliate will provide resources to all participants. Intends to use the money to fund printing costs, materials, postage, and refreshments. / 1) Hope to offer the event on August 28th
2) Train 4 volunteers to present by May 2014
3) Send out 70 invitations for various faith communities and religious organizations.
4) Create binders for each attendee that has info re: services, support groups, treatment centers, signature programs, etc. / 11/13/14:
Began by forming a committee to build capacity around Faith outreach. Created a folder of community supports and resources. Offered 1st formal presentation on 8/28/14; used Bridges…; invitations were sent to 140 faith leaders, but only 10 participated from Catholic and protestant churches. One participant has asked for a follow up presentation to congregational outreach committees.
NAMI Indiana / Enhanced Outreach / Joshua Sprunger and Carole Wills /
/ Plans to complete 3 major projects this year. 1) Networking and hosting a table at the AAPC national convention 2) provide at 6 hour Reaching Out training to interested affiliates, 3) co-sponsoring seminary training in Oct. 2014 at MHM Conference. / 1) Distribute 200-300 NAMI FaithNet brochures to conference attendees in hopes of getting 2 new partners.
2) Train 10 more NAMI affiliates on Reaching Out…
3) Hope to train 200 seminarians and local clergy; will also create pre and posttest evaluation tool. / 11/17/14:
1) Conducted trainings for faith leaders on various topics.
2) Attended P2P conference, AAPC Conference, NAMI Nat’l convention.
3) Created and conducted seminary training (collaboration with P2P and AAPC).
4) Other outreach initiatives for mental health awareness day, articles, mailings.
5) Planning outreach to refugee & immigrant populations.
NAMI Alabama / Enhanced Outreach / Wanda Laird /
(334) 233-2993 / Intends to partner with the Department of Corrections and local clergy to conduct a half-day summit on for individuals of faith, living with mental illness in the prison population. / Goal is to have 50-75 total participants that will lead to 10 new members. They also hope the summit will help secure two new faith community contacts to follow up with in the future. / Held screening of Hidden Picture: A Personal Journey into Global Mental Health. 50 community members attended. Has plans to follow up with attendees. / 11/12/14:
Hosted 2 events in September. One was a panel discussion on the documentary Anonymous People. Conducted Sharing hope presentation at Prince of Peace Church. Combined the attendees totaled 650 people.
NAMI DeKalb / Basic Outreach / Alisa Porter /
(404) 353-4004 / Would like to host presentations for two large faith groups. / They hope to reach about 1,000 individuals due to size of the churches they intend to connect with. Will start out my offering Bridges with the hopes of following up to offer MH 101/IOOV, then start faith based support groups as needed. / 11/13/14:
Conducted 4 NFN events; have 3 events scheduled for early 2015. For 3 events affiliate used Bridges of Hope. Also trained facilitator to conduct faith based support group for family members which has now begun.
NAMI Madison County, Indiana / Basic
Outreach / Larry Wiesenauer /
(765) 387-0396 / Affiliate has already gone through the capacity building phase; has purchased a laptop, projector, PowerPoint software, & laser printer. Identified a total of 230 faith communities in their county. Intend the use grant funds to purchase thumb drives for volunteers to do at home study and a projector screen. Affiliate would like to be as self-contained as possible as many of the faith communities in their area are small and have few resources. / 1) Train 6 already identified volunteers to be able to present Bridges to faith communities, by 8/2014
2) Conduct Bridges presentations to congregations; hope to visits 4 congregations by end of 2014.