Conference 2011: Meet our Keynote

NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania's 11th Annual Education Conference is scheduled for Saturday, April 30 at the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott.

Keynote speaker Alex White, 24, was born and raised in southern Colorado. Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at the age of 14, Alex has used filmmaking as a means of both creative expression and therapy. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Film from Montana State University, earned numerous awards for his first short film and worked in the New York City film industry. He is currently serving with the Peace Corp in a small rural village in northwestern Kazakhstan.

Alex is flying from Kazakhstan to Pittsburgh to tell his story in a keynote presentation titled "More Than An Illness: Growing Up With Intolerance." Alex will share his inspiring story of growing up with a mental illness that was misunderstood by the people around him. How did he come to understand the illness when his family, doctors and community each defined it differently? How did the ignorance of a well-intended community affect his ability to heal? How did he transcend this environment and begin a life of recovery? And, perhaps most important, how can intolerance teach us to be more tolerant? Alex’s story will resonate with anyone who has been misunderstood and show that each of us is “more than an illness.”

Click here for information on our schedule, speakers, panelists and more! Just interested in getting a registration form? Click here. Registrations can be faxed to our office at 412-366-3935.

Visit the NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania website for more information, or call us at 412-366-3788. We hope to see you there!

Barn-Raising and Potluck Dinner to Benefit NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania

On Tuesday, March 22 from 7:00-9:00, Pittsburgh artist Sam Perry and the Secret Agent L Project will be opening the doors of ARTica Gallery at 5110 Penn Avenue for a potluck dinner and barn-raising benefiting NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania. The event is a sneak peek of the upcoming gallery show, Welcome to SamSamland: Don't Wear Black to My Funeral and will focus on community building while co-creating a original art piece that will be the center of the show.

Tickets are $5 with a potluck dish, $10 without a dish. You can even RSVP at the Facebook event page!  For more information, please contact Sam Perry at nospamforsamsam@gmail.com.

Contributed by Lora M. Dziemiela, Program Secretary

NAMI Conference Brochure Available Online

The brochure for the 11^th Annual NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania Conference is now online! Click here for information on our schedule, speakers, panelists and more!

Just interested in getting a registration form? Click here. Registrations can be faxed to our office at 412-366-3935.

Visit the NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania website for more information, or call us at 412-366-3788. We hope to see you there!

Contributed by Lora M. Dziemiela, Program Secretary

2011 Regional Education Conference

NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania

2011 Regional Education Conference

April 30, 2011 - Pittsburgh Airport Marriott

Embracing Diversity:

Cultivating Respect and Inclusion for a Stronger Mental Health System

Mental illness reaches into every community and affects people from all walks of life. The National NAMI Standards of Excellence – diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination – charge us to actively strive to be inclusive of every sector of our demographic and to make no distinction among people who have a mental illness and other members of the community. To strengthen the mental health system, we must be able to demonstrate our openness to all as we describe who our members are and how we serve their communities.

Cultural competency requires all of us to recognize and respect culture, belief, behavior and needs. Cultures can include language, customs, beliefs and values of various racial, ethnic, religious and social groups. According to the 2009 article Cultural Competency and Its Impact on Addiction Treatment and Recovery by Curtis Upsher, MS, “Other cultural variables that have influential effects on health disparities and the healthcare encounter are age, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, language and literacy abilities, education level, physical ability and social class.”

Reflectively, raising our self awareness of our own culture is as important as developing an awareness of the cultural context of others. Inclusion is more than acknowledging and tolerating differences. Embracing diversity means we make every effort to understand and appreciate our differences, to respect experiences different than our own and, finally, to value the quality of our differences.

Who Should Attend:

Consumers of mental health services and family members; mental health professionals; educators; local community leaders; and regional, county and state government leaders in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Conference Tuition:

Family Member/Consumer Rates: 

     NAMI Member- $45.00 

     Non-Member- $50.00

Professional Rates: 

     NAMI Member: $75.00 

     Non-Member: $85.00

Download Conference Forms:

Conference Agenda

Registration Form

NIMH Science Update: Most Teens With Eating Disorders Go Without Treatment

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A National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded study recently reported that about three percent of U.S. adolescents are affected by an eating disorder, but many go without treatment.

For more information about eating disorders, visit the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) website, and check out informational articles about eating disorders (such as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder) and their treatment and recovery at Helpguide.

Keep up with mental health news- visit NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania's website, Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our blog's RSS feed!


Contributed by Lora M. Dziemiela, Program Secretary