NAMI Provider Education Program
Utilizing personal and familial perspectives to better help clinicians understand mental health illnesses
What?
The NAMI Provider Education Program is a mental health education course designed for clinicians and providers in a 4-hour seminar format. The course presents a penetrating, subjective view of family and consumer experiences with serious mental illness to line staff at public agencies who work directly with people with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Healthcare providers increasingly need a heightened sensitivity and deeper knowledge to meet the challenges of helping individuals and families dealing with mental health issues.
Continuing Educational Units (CEUs) are available for licensed professionals. NAMI Greater Houston also extends this course to university students in medical school or enrolled in academic programs for nursing, psychology, counseling, social work, and related disciplines. The course helps providers realize the hardships that families and consumers face and appreciate the courage and persistence it takes to live with and recover from mental illness. We emphasize, using the Provider curriculum, the involvement of consumers and family members as faculty in provider-staff training.
How is the Provider Education course unique?
The Provider Course emphasizes the involvement of consumers and family members as faculty in provider-staff training. The teaching team consists of three (3) facilitators:
- A family member trained as a Family-to-Family Education Program teachers;
- A person in recovery who is knowledgeable about their own mental illness and has a supportive relationship with their family, and is dedicated to the process of recovery; and
- A mental health professional who is also a family member or person in recovery.
To learn more about the NAMI Provider Education Program or to register, please email our Outreach and Programs Director, Tiffany Ross, at tross@namigreaterhouston.org, or call 713-970-4431.