Equip Yourself For The Journey Ahead

The first week is all about getting to know one another and the first reactions to mental illness.

What is Family-to-Family? Who are the other people in the class with you?

We'll also cover the realities of discrimination, stigma, and bias towards mental illness. These realities impact the entire family, and facing this new reality has predictable emotional responses.

We want to equip you with current, medical information around mental illness. There are positive and negative symptoms as well as genetics and inherited risks. We cover the physiology of the brain, environmental factors, self-harm and suicide. In addition, you will learn how to prepare for and respond to crises.

One of the most difficult realities for family members is simply getting a mental health diagnosis from care providers. We walk through both public and private health care services available, and common challenges when seeking a diagnosis.

This week equips you with tools to get a diagnosis, understand that diagnosis, how to advocate for care, and false beliefs about mental health conditions and violence. This is also a week where the participants have an opportunity to share their stories.

Entering into the world of Mental Health can be overwhelming. There is a significant amount of terms, diagnosis, and expressions of mental health to learn.

This week, we will talk more specifically about health care, helping you to understand cultural sensitivity in health care and holistic care. We also help unpack the difference between an episode and a disorder.

You will learn about depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, psychotic episodes and first episode psychosis, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), borderline personality disorder, and the existence of anosognosia (lack of insight). We also unpack the reality of mental health conditions and substance use disorders.

What options are available for your loved one? We work through how to navigate the various systems, approaches to care, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). You will be equipped to understand how collaborative care works towards healing.

We will cover treatment options, settings, psychotherapeutic interventions, treatment providers, medication, hospitalization and assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), biomedical and complementary health approaches. Finally, you will learn what signs of relapse to be aware of.

When crisis strikes, communication becomes incredibly important. It is often the first pieces that breaks down, as stress levels rise, but you can equip yourself with the tools to stay cool in times of extreme stress and move towards a solution.

We equip you with communication skills and guidelines with your loved one. We teach you to recognize your own communication patterns and how to use "I" statements for greater collaboration. You will also learn how to use reflective responses and gain problem-solving skills, Lastly, you will learn how to utilize collaborative and proactive solutions (CPS).

Mental Illness is often hard to understand because it is difficult to observe. Week 7 covers the psychological impact of mental health conditions as well as the psychological pain associated with any serious illness. We teach you how to protect self-esteem with defensive coping strategies and give you guidelines for offering empathy.

Then, we move towards recovery with your loved one including an overview of historical ideas of recovery, a definition, and the role of rehabilitation in mental health recovery. Today, there have been steps taken towards new, innovative approaches in rehabilitation and supportive employment. We hear from a guest speakers and learn that recovery is different for every individual.

You have a life that needs to be lived, even though you might feel hampered by the reality of this mental illness in your loved one. We explore the challenges of mental illness as well as family roles and perspectives. It is completely normal to feel difficult emotions and we teach you how to talk about them.

Most importantly, we give you tangible tools on how to take care of yourself today and into the future.