NAMI News

For those who missed it the first time, NAMI encourages all American families to tune in to the Discovery Channel's remarkable documentary on schizophrenia, one of the world's most misunderstood illnesses.

In August, 2000, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) wrote a detailed letter asking you to spare the life of Alexander Williams, a man with a longstanding severe mental illness, by commuting his death sentence to a more humane alternative sentence.

It's called "suicide by cop," in which a suicidal individual deliberately seeks to create a dangerous situation so that police are forced to shoot. Like Mr. Pickett, sometimes the person is only wounded. Other times, the shooting is fatal.

NAMI commends Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Representatives Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) for today introducing the "Family Opportunity Act of 2001" to help families with children who have severe and chronic disorders, including the early-onset of mental illnesses.

Based on My Sister's Keeper: Learning to Cope with a Sibling's Mental Illness (1993) by Margaret Moorman, which included discussion of NAMI support groups, this true story is about the journey of discovery, respect and independence between two sisters. Christine (Bates) is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder as a teenager. 

Weston is incompetent to stand trial. Treatment of his illness with medication potentially will make him well enough not only to be tried and convicted, but also executed, even though he was deeply ill at the time the tragic crime occurred.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) has inaugurated a new design for its award-winning Web site, www.nami.org, which draws approximately 700,000 distinct visitors per month—an increase of more than 130 percent from two years ago.

On January 3, 2001, the U.S. Surgeon General will release a report indicating that the nation faces a public crisis in mental healthcare for children and adolescents. Institutions and systems created to take care of children are failing them instead. 

The U.S. Surgeon General's national action agenda on children's mental health released earlier today is an unprecedented document. It is only the second Surgeon General's report devoted to mental illness, and the first to focus specifically on the urgent, unmet needs of children and adolescents.

 It is perhaps the most misunderstood illness in America. If all television portrayals were this good, however, life might be different.