SAMHSA-Sponsored NFF Webinar: Informal and Formal Family Peer Support: The Impact and the Evidence (July 30th, 2024)
In a panel discussion moderated by NFF Executive Director Dr. Lynda Gargan, presenters will use their lived and professional expertise to discuss how the inclusion of person-centered, family-driven approaches to behavioral health support, such as family peer support, lead us towards a more equitable society where all families have access to high quality, holistic mental health support. Family peers are able to connect families with resources and services and co-create person-centered, family-driven plans that support the family in reaching their goals. Here are the links to the recording and the presentation slides.
SAMHSA-Sponsored NFF Webinar: Mental Health and Substance Use Challenge Prevention and Recovery: Poverty as an Equity Issue (July 9th, 2024)
Poverty creates barriers to equity within the Social Determinants of Health—economic stability, safe environment, social and community well-being, and access to quality education and healthcare. This panel discussion brings together individuals with professional and lived expertise to discuss the impact of poverty particularly on access to behavioral health services along the continuum of prevention, crisis intervention, and sustained recovery. Here are the links to the recording and the presentation slides.
SAMHSA Sponsored Discussion: Passing the Torch - Children's Mental Health Acceptance Week Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
(May 8th, 2024)
Children's Mental Health Acceptance Week, previously known as Awareness week, has a long history. The campaign began in Missouri in 1992. Over the next five years, several more states started their own celebrations, and the National Federation of Families took the campaign national. This is a rich discussion about the history, evolution, and future of this important campaign as we pass the torch from SAMHSA's mental health champion Liz Sweet (retired) to Carol Cecil (incumbent). Here are the links to the recording and presentation Slides.
2024 SAMHSA Sponsored Webinar Series: Person-Centered, Family-Driven Mental Health and Substance Use Support - A Path Towards Equity
Speak Up: Person-Centered Language Drives Equity for Individuals with Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges (May 2024)
Choosing the right words when talking about mental health and substance use challenges, as well as the people facing them, is crucial! Our language can influence our beliefs and attitudes, which in turn, affect our behavior and societal norms. Hear panelists with lived experience discuss the importance of moving from mental health and substance use awareness to acceptance in part through changing the language we use to talk about behavioral health challenges. Here is the link to the recording and presentation slides.
Equity in Mental Health and Substance Use Support: Overcoming Challenges to Access for Families (April 2024)
Mental health and substance use challenges affect families across diverse geographic, socio-economic, and cultural demographics. When someone experiences serious mental illness or emotional disturbance alongside a substance use challenge, accessing quality support can become even more complex. Join us for a conversation about how families, medical professionals, and systems staff are advocating for equitable access to quality substance use support. Here is the link to the recording.
Advancing Social Justice, Equity, and Inclusion for Families and Their Children Conference (November 2023)
The 2023 conference, held in Chicago, IL, offered more than 90 great workshops featuring speakers representing 84 organizations from across the nation and Canada. Attendees included 629 mental health and substance use prevention advocates and professionals working to support, educate, and empower families! Learn more here.
Cutting-Edge Practice Skills for the Family Peer Workforce (November 2023)
For a family member or caregiver, their child is a child regardless of age. When a child becomes an adult, the family/caregiver relationships, services, systems, and legal worlds to support them change. Families and caregivers who are supporting their adult children are faced with navigating the adult systems with their adult child. For Family Peer Support to be effective and meaningful across the lifespan, it must be broad and adaptable for all age groups. The Family Peer Specialist role supports families and caregivers as they navigate systems and support their children throughout their lives. This training provided Family Peer Specialists (FPS) and the Family Peer Workforce with skills and tools to support families navigating child- and family-serving systems in their communities with their children of any age.
Family Engagement in School Mental Health (September 2023)
Families and schools don’t always have the same ideas of what family engagement looks like. In this webinar we will detail ways to bring families and schools together on the concept of “family engagement”. Family engagement is a collaborative and strengths-based process through which the workforce, families, and children build positive and goal-orientated relationships. It is a shared responsibility of families and school staff at all levels that require mutual respect for the roles and the strengths each has to offer. With successful family partnerships, schools can move from family involvement to family engagement. Here are links to the recording and presentation slides.
SAMHSA-Sponsored NFF Webinar: Including and Elevating Fathers in Family Mental Health Support (June 2023)
Dr. James C. Rodriguez and his team at the Fathers and Families Coalition of America have used their extensive lived experience and expertise as clinicians and family members to create a variety of professional development opportunities and an international conference to increase the knowledge and skills around family mental health and substance use support not only for fathers and families, but also for those who support them. Join us to hear Dr. Rodriguez’s story of using his experience as a father and clinician to address the needs he saw in state and federal systems, as well as individual and family mental health and substance use support. Listen to the webinar recording here.
Marijuana: What Parents, Schools & the Healthcare Workforce Need to Know (May 2023)
Whether a young person has not yet tried marijuana, has begun to use it, or uses it regularly, the guidance and information provided in this webinar can help. The teen and early adult years are when children are most vulnerable to starting marijuana use and to its harmful effects. In the context of more and more states legalizing the drug for adult nonmedical use, marijuana use is becoming more normalized, and its risks are becoming more commonly overlooked. This is despite the rising potency of the drug, new modes of using it, and the mounting research evidence of its risks to young people's health and well-being. Here are links to the presentation recording, slides, and Q & A.
SAMHSA-Sponsored NFF Webinar: Supporting Family Members with Co-Occurring Diagnoses (May 2023)
Learn skills that help clinicians effectively engage families to support individuals with co-occurring diagnoses, including serious mental illness, and/or serious emotional disturbance. Hear how families serve as natural supports in the recovery journey and learn about the tools and strategies Family Peer Specialists use to support families of individuals with co-occurring diagnoses. Watch the recording here.
SAMHSA-Sponsored NFF Webinar: Family Engagement Strategies for Clinicians (April 2023)
Learn about the importance of natural support in recovery orientated care and planning with Dr. Lynda Gargan, Executive Director of the National Federation of Families, and Janis Tondora, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine. Watch the recording here.