Nami Minnesota

Education and support: Nami Minnesota offers several different classes for family members and parents. Family-to-family (8-weeks) and hope for recovery (6 hours) are for people who have adult family members who live with a mental illness. These two classes reached 361 people. There are several classes targeted for parents of children under the age of 21, including understanding first psychotic episodes, early warning signs, transitions, college prep, special education, and mental health crisis planning. These classes reached over 700 parents. Nami runs two projects in dakota and scott counties where we provide one- on-one assistance and offer education and support. Nami Minnesota is also a part of the children's system of care grant, focusing on ensuring parent and family engagement in the design of the mental health system. Our family peer specialist is under a partial contract with three of the programs running a first 'episode of psychosis program to provide education and support to over 280 families whose teen or young adult is experiencing a first psychotic episode. The suicide rate actually went down in 2020 but had reached an all time high in 2019. While some of the evidence-based programs were not allowed to be presented virtually - such as asist or safetalk - Nami focused on qpr and calm and was able to reach 2,500 people. We were able to offer it in spanish as well. We continued to collaborate with umash to bring suicide prevention to farm communities, and with the suicide survivors club to help families heal after a suicide. Our peer led support groups no number 55. Groups support families of adults, parents of children, people with mental illnesses and groups for people who identify as lgbtqa, for young adults and for people from cultural communities, including spanish. The pandemic led to an online state conference featuring two wonderful keynote speakers - the research dinner hosted by Nami and the university of Minnesota department of psychiatry was also held online. Nami Minnesota offered special online trainings on a number of topics reaching nearly 2,400 people. Nami continues its work to become a culturally diverse and informed organization. Nami Minnesota's full-time spanish speaking parent educator conducts outreach to the community, provides education and one-to-one support in dakota, Washington, and ramsey counties. The young adult multi- cultural advisory committee created care packages for young adults from bipoc communities and they created a new podcast series called "resistance in color." Mental health 101 is a class designed to be culturally sensitive and is delivered to the african american, spanish speaking and lgbtq communities. We also offered a class entitled the intersection of race, discrimination and trauma. Trainings were provided to staff and volunteers on racism and on different cultures.

Public policy: Nami Minnesota is a leader in the public policy arena and participates in different task forces and advisory committees to ensure that elected officials and policy makers are aware of the needs of children and adults with mental illnesses and their families and how they can be met. This year Nami Minnesota led the effort to pass a complete overhaul of the competency restoration system and to address workforce shortages. While foundation money is not used to fund our public policy efforts, it is an important part of our work to make sure the mental health system continues to be built to meet the mental health needs of minnesotans. Nami is also viewed as the "go to" organization for the media with its executive director frequently interviewed over 80 times on issues related to mental illnesses and the mental health system.

Public awareness: raising awareness about mental health and mental illnesses was especially important during the pandemic. The in our own voice programs, where people share their story of recovery, reached 1,500 people. Wellness workshops and other public awareness programs reached over 500 people. Employers were reaching out more than ever before for help for their employees. Nami Minnesota offered a series of classes to over 90 employers reaching 5,000 people. We delivered a national Nami program called ending the silence, to over 8,000 high school students. We also created a class for students on dealing with anxiety and are piloting a program for middle school students. The website had 142.49k visitors. Six e-newsletters covering general information, children's mental health, criminal justice, suicide prevention, employers, legislative issues, and others are published every month with 55,271 subscribers. Nami has a strong presence on social media with 13,510 facebook followers, 7,102 twitter followers, and 1,954 instagram followers.

Helpline: over 3,500 people contacted the helpline for assistance in navigating the mental health system or looking for information on how to help a loved one. Nami Minnesota continues to update and publish 12 booklets to assist people in navigating various parts of the mental health system.