We believe that’s worth fighting for.
When we bring the perspective of the family AND the person living with mental illness directly to policymakers, we educate elected officials to prioritize policy decisions that ensure quality services, and enhance recovery for the mental health community in New York.
The NAMI-NYC Advocacy Ambassador program provides families and individuals impacted by mental illness with the skills and training needed to meet with elected officials and create change in their communities.
Sharing your lived experience with an elected official in your area is an important way to make a difference in the life of your loved one or yourself. Meeting with policymakers gives you the opportunity to directly voice your concerns, and shows legislators that voters care about improving the lives of families and individuals impacted by mental illness. By getting involved in mental health advocacy work with NAMI-NYC, you can help shape legislation and build power in the NYC mental health community.
Ambassadors will participate in a training series that teaches best practices for meeting with elected officials and building the relationships required to achieve policy wins. After their training, Advocacy Ambassadors will be champions for policy that impacts the mental health of New Yorkers in their communities, and working together with NAMI-NYC staff, will be responsible for making sure elected officials in their area are informed about and supportive of important mental health issues. Ambassadors are also dedicated to building grassroots power by assisting friends, family, and other community members with contacting their own elected officials, and explaining the importance of supporting policies that will allow families and individuals impacted by mental illness to live their best lives.
We believe in a person-centered approach to healthcare to assist people living with mental illness. Integral to the goal of person-centered healthcare is the ability for people living with a mental illness to access the most appropriate treatments to advance their specific recovery. Healthcare projects NAMI-NYC supports include:
Allen Psychiatric Hospital provides crucial mental health services to the Washington Heights-Inwood neighborhoods, which is an underserved area of NYC. Closing this psych unit would remove a severely needed mental health resource, and would only exacerbate our city’s mental health crisis. We support keeping Allen Psych hospital open, and increasing funding for psychiatric hospitals.
The New York Health Act would create a single-payer healthcare system for New York, eliminating the power of insurance companies to dictate treatment, and providing healthcare access for the uninsured as well. NAMI-NYC supports the New York Health Act, as it will provide cheaper, easier to access, mental healthcare for all New Yorkers.
Education is a critical instrument in fighting mental health stigma and creating healthier communities. Education projects NAMI-NYC supports include:
This bill provides teachers with mental health training so they know the signs of common mental health conditions. Students often spend more time at school than at home, and the amount of time teachers spend with their students puts them on the front lines of childhood mental health. It’s important we give teachers the tools they need to identify and support students who have a mental illness. Through direct connection with local elected officials, and through the hard work of our Advocacy Ambassadors, NAMI-NYC is committed to make this bill become a reality. We urge the legislature to pass A5313/S5704.
Further, we support improving our criminal justice system, to help ensure the best outcomes for people living with a mental illness who enter or exit the system. Criminal Justice projects NAMI-NYC supports include:
Diversion Centers would create an alternative to arrest for people suffering from substance abuse or a mental health episode by creating “health diversion centers” where individuals can get short-term treatment until they are stable. We believe the creation of health diversion centers can be a key step in helping shift people living with a mental illness away from the criminal justice system and towards recovery. NAMI-NYC supports increased funding for these centers so they can finally open and begin their important work. We also are committed to ensuring these diversion centers emphasize treatment and recovery.
Mental health courts were established to improve the response of the criminal justice system to individuals with serious mental illness who committed low-level non-violent offenses. Their goal is to reduce the incarceration and recidivism of these individuals by linking offenders to local behavioral health science providers to develop individualized treatment plans, under intensive supervision by the courts. To participate, one must plead guilty to the charges pressed against them. We believe the use of mental health courts is vital to properly treat the mental illnesses underlying some criminal offenses, rather than further deteriorating one’s mental health by placing them in jail or prison. NAMI-NYC supports the improved use of these courts, especially those that accept defendants with Axis I diagnoses, PTSD, and substance use disorders. We are committed to promoting awareness about these courts as an alternative to typical criminal proceedings to better the lives of those suffering from mental illness in the criminal justice system.