NAMI moves to regionalize

Group to assist tri-county residents, their families with mental illness

Friday, June 16, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Susan Craton Connie Walker refers to a National Alliance on Mental Illness report, ‘‘Grading the States,” which gives Maryland a C-plus for its services available to those with a mental illness. Walker is working to create a NAMI Southern Maryland chapter to advocate for changes that will improve that grade. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Above the bookcase are display cases of meticulously arranged green, red and blue medals and awards from her and her husband’s years in the U.S. Navy. And then the books on the top shelf of the bookcase relate to that career — books on leadership, recruiting, training techniques, Winston Churchill, ‘‘The Fifth Discipline.”

The theme changes, though, down lower on the middle shelves, the easier-to-reach shelves.

There, the books are about mental illness. There are rows of books on how a family copes with mental illness, how mental illness affects a family, how to live with mental illness, different kinds of mental illness.

Walker, a retired Navy captain living in Leonardtown, is focused on something different now.

She points to those books on the middle shelves, saying they are the resource books she’s gathered over the last two years.

Two years ago is when her son — her 6-feet-7-inch tall, basketball-playing son — a private first class in the U.S. Army, came home from his tour of duty in northern Kuwait. Walker described his work in the Middle East, his experience with Scud missiles and wearing full-body biological warfare suits in the stifling heat.

Her son was diagnosed with a serious mental illness, SMI, six months after his return from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom in July 2003.

‘‘Everybody has their different tipping point,” she said.

The diagnosis threw an unexpected curve in Walker’s life and her family’s life.

‘‘When my son was diagnosed with a SMI, my husband and I, like many others in the beginning stages of this journey, thought that we could influence the course of his recovery if we just worked hard enough,” Walker wrote. ‘‘We thought if we did the right things ... whatever they were ... life would return to normal for him and for our family.

‘‘It doesn’t work that way.”

Walker had planned to start law school once she retired from the Navy. Instead, she is devoting her time, at least for now, to passing on what she’s learned about what works and what doesn’t when mental illness strikes a family.

She began doing this by working to revitalize the St. Mary’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, a chapter that has been fairly dormant for the past couple of years, she said.

NAMI is an organization that provides advocacy, education and support for people with serious mental illness and brain disorders and their family members and friends. It’s an organization that helped Walker, and she believes it can help more people in Southern Maryland.

In the process, Walker has come across others, including NAMI’s Calvert County chapter President Joanne McDonald, interested in regionalizing NAMI and instead creating a Southern Maryland chapter.

There was ‘‘unanimous support for moving to a regional affiliate,” she said, adding that NAMI National and NAMI Maryland are also behind the idea. ‘‘Everyone has said we will have a more powerful voice as a regional affiliate.

‘‘I don’t think that if we worked as individual counties we could acquire the political voice that we want that we will as a regional affiliate,” Walker continued, citing the resources the three counties will combine, including triple the political backing and potential for funding.

But ‘‘it comes in steps,” she explained.

‘‘It’s my way of fighting,” Walker said of her efforts.

Mental health officials in the area welcome Walker’s participation in the struggle. The Mental Health Authority of St. Mary’s Inc. is responsible for managing the local applications of the statewide government mental health programs. But officials in that office are interested in more than monitoring the state dollars.

‘‘Our mission includes promoting the mental health wellness of the community,” said Alexis Zoss, executive director of the local mental health authority. ‘‘And that is why we need partners like NAMI.”

The same is true for the Charles County government agency Human Services Partnership in La Plata, said Stephanie Jackson, an adult planning specialist with the agency.

‘‘We actually monitor how the providers spend the funds that we provide,” Jackson said of the agency.

‘‘Governmental services are limited” in what they can do, she said. ‘‘A private-sector [organization like NAMI] can do more of the lobbying to get laws changed ... fighting for the rights of persons with mental illness.”

Zoss noted that 22.1 percent of Americans will experience mental illness at some point in their life, meaning it’s a problem that many cannot escape. And it’s a problem that requires resources from every sector of the community — resources that aren’t necessarily in place at this point.

‘‘I think what’s important is that folks start to realize it’s not just the formal mental health system that is the entire answer to the mental health wellness problem,” Zoss said, adding that families, consumers and the community are all part of the solution.

Human Services Partnership plans to do its part to help support the Southern Maryland chapter as it comes to fruition, including attending its meetings, because the agency sees it as part of the solution as well.

‘‘NAMI is one of those agencies that is going to promote education [about mental illness] within the tri-county area,” Jackson explained. ‘‘They’ll also be a helping hand for us,” eventually offering referrals and education resources for area residents facing mental illness.

NAMI is designed to educate and mobilize families, consumers and the community. And, according to Walker and a recent nationwide NAMI report, there’s plenty of work to do. Walker holds up a thick report, ‘‘Grading the States,” produced by NAMI that rates each state on the services available to those with a mental illness. ‘‘It’s a huge problem in this country,” she said.

Maryland received a lackluster C-plus for its services. And Walker noted that the Southern Maryland region doesn’t deserve particularly high marks either, at least at this point.

‘‘Southern Maryland is a great place to live. Just don’t have a mental illness here,” Walker said.

‘‘To get any information at all I had to go to Annapolis,” said La Plata resident Pat Hemler, who has dealt with mental illness with several members of her family. ‘‘There was nothing available at all in Southern Maryland.”

‘‘I’m hoping that regionally [NAMI] can make a difference in educating not just the people with a mental illness, but also the public in general,” Jackson said. ‘‘People with a mental illness are people just like anyone else.”

‘‘What I would hope to have happen is one day for mental illness to be in the same category as any physical illness,” Hemler said, acknowledging that day is a long way off. ‘‘This organization is a step toward that.”

Walker agreed, saying a ‘‘healthy” NAMI chapter for all of Southern Maryland is a big step in the right direction.

But Walker will need some help. ‘‘There is no such thing as a NAMI of one,” she said.

Though the Southern Maryland chapter has already found several individuals to step up to the plate — Walker will take on the role as president, McDonald as vice president and Hemler as a board member — there is still a large list NAMI needs to meet to complete the regional move.

‘‘I need board members — a treasurer, secretary, community relations person. I desperately need office space. I need a Web site,” Walker said.

Eventually she hopes to also bring NAMI educational programs to the area, including one that particularly helped her family. The NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program is a free 12-week course for family and individuals with serious mental illness that is taught by trained NAMI family members. And so, if the program is to be offered in the area, the chapter will need members willing to be trained as teachers for the program.

‘‘None of these things are things we can do right now,” she acknowledged.

But Walker and others are determined that that time will come.

In the meantime, the St. Mary’s chapter held its first official meeting under Walker’s leadership May 3 at St. Mary’s Hospital and had 18 in attendance, not a bad turnout by Walker’s estimation. The May 23 meeting, where they began organizing the Southern Maryland chapter board, was even more productive. There are now six board members, representative of all three counties, though room is still open.

An educational meeting open to the public will be held June 26, and Walker hopes to see more people interested in a regional NAMI attend.

The meeting will address mental health matters, including discussing Maryland’s mental health care system, program services and case management for mental health in Southern Maryland and what’s on the horizon for mental health. Core service agency directors from St. Mary’s, Charles and Calvert counties will also be on hand.

‘‘I think we can [make a go of this],” Walker said. ‘‘I think everything we need is here. It just needs to be harnessed.”

Staff writer Natalie Gienger contributed to this report.

E-mail Susan Craton at scraton@somdnews.com.