Cambridge and other Greater Boston communities
National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts, Inc. NEWSLETTER Cambridge - Middlesex Affiliate EDUCATION • SUPPORT • ADVOCACY
Affiliated with the National Alliance on Mental Illness • www.nami.org November 2012 Tuesday, December 4, 2012 Cambridge/ Middlesex ave the dates Presents 2012 - 2013 Hearing from the Experts Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012 Dual Treating SEducation Program Hearing from the Experts Dual Diagnosis Treating Dual Diagnosis (Addiction/Mental Illness) - Dr. Mark Albanese, Diagnosis Dr. Mark Albanese Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School - Woody Geissmann, Woody Geissmann Right Turn Right Turn - Britney Cross, Westbridge People with dual diagnosis Community Services. Britney Cross suffer from a drug or alcohol - Dr. Martha Kane, ARMS Westbridge Community Services addiction and a co-occurring Program for young people and psychiatric illness. Dual Dr. Martha Kane, their families, Massachusetts diagnosis is estimated to ARMS Program for young people General Hospital affect over 50 percent of and their families, Massachusetts people with serious mental General Hospital Tuesday, March 5, 2013 illness. Effective treatment Education Program Macht Auditorium requires an integrated The Promise of CET Cambridge Hospital approach, where the same COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT 1493 Cambridge St., Cambridge team treats both the addic- THERAPY tion and psychiatric disorder - Matcheri S. Keshavan, M.D., simultaneously. 6:30-7:00 pm...... Refreshments/social time 7:00-8:00 pm...... Presentations Stanley Cobb, Professor 8:00-8:30 pm...... Time for questions and Vice-Chair for Public Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Support Group Leader Karen Safford Both programs presented at Receives Lifetime Achievement Award Macht Auditorium Cambridge Hospital Our beloved Karen Safford was recognized for 25 years of devotion to NAMI 1493 Cambridge St., Cambridge and her NAMI friends with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the NAMIMass 6:30-7:00 pm...... Refreshments/ Convention, October 20. Karen and her late husband Rick worked tirelessly for social time NAMI Cambridge Middlesex, facilitating the monthly support group, rain or 7:00-8:00 pm...... Presentations. shine. Karen has been a cheerful, caring presence at practically every Steering 8:00-8:30 pm...... Time for questions Committee meeting and program all these years. They took a personal interest in other family members and helped show that, yes, there is life after a mental illness diagnosis in the family, and, no, it’s not your fault. For more information, check our phone: 617-984-0527 or website at: www.nami-cambridgemiddlesex.org Free Family to Family Class Important Phone Numbers to Start Feb. 7, 2013. Information on NAMI Cambridge-Middlesex Affiliate Cambridge Middlesex is offering the free 12-week Programs Family to Family class again this spring, starting on For up-to-date recorded information about educational meetings, February 7 in Cambridge from 6:30-9 pm. Family to support groups, or membership. You can leave a message. Family is a free 12-week course designed to educate ...... 617-984-0527 family members, care givers and friends about all aspects of major mental illnesses. Psychiatric Emergencies - Cambridge Hospital PREREGISTRATION IS REQUIRED and classes On-site (PES) Psychiatric Emergency Services, Cambridge fill quickly. See www.namimass.org for details and Hospital, on the main campus of Cambridge Health Alliance, registration or contact: 1493 Cambridge St, Cambridge. Staffed with psychiatrists and [email protected] nurses 24/7...... 617-665-1560 —or— [email protected] BEST Team (Boston Emergency Service Team) This is the primary emergency service team in the Boston area. Serves Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville).....800-981-4357 For other communities, call...... 877-382-1609 and enter your zip code. In-person behavioral health crisis assessment, intervention, and Education and Support stabilization services 24 hours a day for individuals of all ages —Support Groups For Family and Friends covered by MassHealth (Medicaid) plans, Medicare, and the uninsured. Clients can be seen in the community or at their NAMI Cambridge-Middlesex offers bi-monthly two centers. They provide assessment, treatment planning, and support group meetings for family members and hospitalization, if necessary. There is also respite care at their two friends of people with mental illness. The support centers in Boston and Cambridge. groups are facilitated by trained NAMI volunteers. Conducted in a confidential atmosphere, the purpose NAMI State Office (9am-5pm, M-F)...... 781-938-4048 of the support groups is to help provide mutual support and coping strategies. Many families find Additional Hotlines NAMI support groups helpful. Suicide Prevention National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK Please contact Elizabeth if you would like more Free, confidential 24-hr. emotional distress line information or to attend. Elizabeth can be reached at [email protected] or Samaritans of Massachusetts 1-877-870-HOPE 781-646-0397. 24 hour Crisis Intervention/HotlineWILL FORMAT The support groups are drop-in, FREE and Samaritans of Massachusetts 1-800-252-8336 conveniently located at Cambridge Hospital. Teen Line (statewide) On-site and street parking are available, and the location is T accessible. Samaritans of Massachusetts 1-617-247-0220 24 hour Helpline • First Monday of the Month: 7:30-9:30 pm (Facilitated by Lisa and Larry) Substance Abuse Help • Third Monday of the Month: 7:30-9:30 pm Mass Substance Abuse HELPLINE 1-800-327-5050 (Facilitated by Karen and Doris) Free, confidential information and referrals Steering Committee
Jane Martin NAMIWa l k s , We b s i t e , Pr o g r a m s Su pp o r t Gr o u p s Pr o g r a m s , Gr e e t e r s [email protected] Se c r e t a r y -Cl e r k Karen Safford Cathy Treco Vi c e Pr e s i d e n t , Pr o g r a m s John Sharp [email protected] [email protected] June Mendelson [email protected] Lisa Fownes Alan Shepp [email protected] Refreshments , NAMIWa l k s [email protected] [email protected] Tr e a s u r e r Sara Sharp Fa m i l y t o Fa m i l y Elizabeth Haines Tom Martin [email protected] Carolyn White [email protected] [email protected] We b s i t e [email protected] Ne w s l e t t e r Larry Ouellette Sharon Devos Mary Pat Prado [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
2 www.nami-cambridgemiddlesex.org Area Family Support Groups For Consumers Support/West—NAMI Central Middlesex Cambridge-Somerville NAMI Connection offers Acton/Littleton This new support group for family/ FREE support groups for persons in recovery at the friends is just starting up in its new home, the Congre- Cambridge-Somerville Recovery Learning Center, gational Church of Littleton, UCC, 330 King St, Littleton, 35 Medford St, Ste. 201. Please contact Janel Tan MA on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month, 7-9PM. ([email protected]) or 617-863-5388), if you would like Contacts: Susan McDougall at [email protected] more information or to attend. Or contact Karen Reedy or 978-263-8830; Marilyn at [email protected] or cell at the NAMI Massachusetts office, 781-938-4048 978-502-0128. • Wednesdays and Fridays: 10:30-noon. Bedford This support group for family/friends meets DBSA-McLean Hospital DBSA (formerly MDDA), last Tuesday of each month, 7:30-9:30pm, First Church of Depression, Bipolar Support Alliance, hosts several Christ, 25 Great Road (Route 4/62/225). Call ahead to use support groups and meetings for people suffering from the elevator for handicap access (Susan Wingfield depression and bipolar disorder, their families and 781-275-9389). Questions: Call the NAMI of Central friends. Meetings are held on Wednesday evenings, Middlesex affiliate helpline 781-982-3318. 7-9 pm, at McLean Hospital, 115 Mill St., Belmont in Dorchester A new NAMI Family Support Group is meet- the Demarneffe Building. For more information, visit ing the 2nd Thursday of each month at Carney Hospital, www.dbsaboston.org or call the DBSA office, Tuesday cafeteria conference room, 6-7:30 pm. 2100 Dorchester through Thursday, 11 am to 4 pm (617-855-2795) Ave. Contacts: Monica, 857-342-2796 or Mpomare28@ or email: office @dbsaboston.org. gmail.com; Mark, 617-522-7439 or [email protected] The Cole Resource Center, Belmont The Cole Center, Stow This family/friends support group meets the third “A Consumer to Consumer Education and Recovery Saturday of the month starting at 10:00am Fellowship Community,” is dedicated to helping mental health Hall, First Parish Church in Stow near the intersection of consumers achieve a full and healthy life by responding Rt. 117 and Rt. 62. Call Trish Woods at 978-897-2962 for to their concerns with the compassion and pragmatism more information and directions. necessary to alleviate their hardship and aid in their Wakefield This Caring & Sharing support group for recovery. family/friends meets on the 2nd Monday of the month, at Open Tues., Weds., and Thurs., 10 am-4 pm Demarneffe 1:00-2:30pm at the Beebe Memorial Library, 345 Main St., Building, McLean Hospital, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, for the winter. If school in Wakefield is closed, we do not MA 02478. Phone: 617-855-3298 or meet. For information contact: Kay at 781-438-1851, or Email: [email protected]. Diane at 978-658-3567 or email: [email protected] www.coleresourcecenter.org Caring for the Soul-Cambridge This group meets at St. Paul’s Church in Harvard Square, Rm. 202, the 2nd Monday of the month, from 5:30-7 pm. Information: [email protected]
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www.nami-cambridgemiddlesex.org 3 Dr. Xavier Amador Answers the Questions about Denial of Illness Why do so many • Use the “A-tools” to give your opinion— people suffer- Apologize, Acknowledge you could be wrong, ing from mental and Agree to disagree. illness refuse • From there, look for areas where you agree and treatment and partner on the things you can work on together. deny that they are Your goal is to become a true ally. sick? Dr. Xavier Dr. Amador learned much of what he now teaches from Amador answered his struggles with his ill big brother, Henry. They were that question very very close as children, but when Henry became ill, he clearly to a packed learned an important lesson, he explains. “My natural auditorium at the instinct to confront denial head-on didn’t help and more October 2 meeting of Cambridge Middlesex. Dr. Ama- often led to disaster….With every dose of reality I tried dor, a clinical psychologist and author of I’m Not Sick, I to give him, Henry countered with more denials.” Don’t Need Help, has been researching the problem of poor insight among the mentally ill for almost 25 years and has Finally after some experience with other patients personal experience with an ill brother. Xavier came to understand that someone like his He explained that it is not denial that we are seeing in these brother Henry will never be able to understand that he patients; rather, it is unawareness. Denial is a coping strat- has a mental illness, so a solution must be found that egy to deal with painful knowledge. What we see in the is separate from the concept of his mental illness. With time Xavier developed the LEAP method that helps one find a way to make a loved one’s life better. It could be “First, don’t try to convince the the realization that taking medicine would help him person that he is ill, but rather stay out of the hospital, for example. help him find his own reasons For Dr. Amador this approach worked and his brother to be in treatment.” returned to being his best friend. Eventually Henry had a stable life, a girlfriend, and did things every day that he enjoyed. He died in 2007, not from any effect of his mentally ill is anosognosia, (AH-no-sog-NO-sia), the illness, but from a traffic accident that happened while neurological syndrome that leaves patients unaware that he was helping someone in need, showing his true they are ill. This condition is even documented in stroke character, unaffected by mental illness. victims. Research shows that about 50 percent of people with schizophrenia do not know they have an illness. This poor insight is linked to executive (or frontal lobe) For more information… dysfunction. • I’m not Sick, I Don’t Need Help Using role play with audience members, he illustrated • www.leapinstitute.org (more on LEAP) how to communicate with someone who cannot appreciate that he or she has a mental illness, and how to help them • tinyurl.com/97begaz (great summary of deal with that illness. Dr. Amador has developed a very Dr. Amador’s approach) effective approach to communication called LEAP (Listen- Empathize-Agree-Partner). “First, don’t try to convince the person that he is ill, but rather help him find his own reasons to be in treatment,” he wrote in SZ Magazine. “The Coming March 5, 2013: decision to accept treatment will have nothing to do with being ill, but instead will hinge on his relationship with Cognitive Enhancement Therapy you. The research is clear: The key is to build a trusting Explore the promise of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy relationship in which the ill person feels listened to and (CET) with Dr. Matcheri S. Keshavan, the Stanley Cobb respected.” He laid out the following tips: Professor and Vice-Chair for Public Psychiatry at Harvard • Never give your opinion about the illness or treatment Medical School at our March 5, 2013 education meeting. unless it is asked for. CET is an evidence-based treatment that improves • Learn how to listen to delusional beliefs with respect cognitive skills and social cognition for persons in and without telling the person it could not possibly be recovery from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. true. Dr. Keshavan will explain how CET promotes recovery • Don’t rush to give your opinion about such beliefs, and why it so important in treating cognitive deficits if asked. in persons with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression and how CET can support vocational success. 4 www.nami-cambridgemiddlesex.org NAMI Cambridge-Middlesex News Cambridge-Middlesex Earns $12,740 from Walk Proceeds Cambridge Middlesex had the top affiliate team in the state for the third year in a row in this year’s NAMIWalk, raising more than $26,000 for NAMIMass with 60 walkers. We received a check for $12,740.40 from NAMIMass for our efforts, funds that cover most of our expenses for the year and have allowed Joyce Calogero, Sharon DeVos, and us to resume donations to consumer service organizations. Doreen Bonacorso at the 2012 Walk.
Lisa Fownes of NAMI Cambridge NAMI-CM Teaming with Middlesex (NAMI CM) and Miriam Tepper of the Cambridge Health Cambridge Health Alliance Alliance (CHA) welcome guests to on Pilot Drop-in Center the November 4 wine tasting. A benefit for the new drop-in center NAMI Cambridge-Middlesex is col- NAMI CM is helping create at CHA, laborating with the Cambridge Health the event featured wines from the Alliance (CHA) on an effort to create Bordeaux region of France and a safe and accepting place for persons a lively silent auction. with mental illness to come together at least twice a week. NAMI-CM has com- mitted $5,000 to the effort and applied on behalf of CHA for another $10,000 from the Cambridge Community Foun- dation (CCF). CHA will provide $10,000 in in-kind staff services and space at the Central Street Outpatient Psychiatry department in Somerville. The grant application to CCF is currently under consideration. The Wine Tasting event scheduled for November 4 is also a benefit for this effort. CHA has long partnered with NAMI- CM, providing free regular meeting Tunefoolery, a professional group for musicians impacted by mental illness, space for our programs, Family-to- is shown here at their Music Renewal Retreat, made possible by a Family classes, and our two sup- $1,000 donation from NAMI-Cambridge/Middlesex. Other recipients of port groups, often with free parking. donations from our affiliate included the substance abuse and rehabilitation Despite its own financial challenges program Right Turn in Arlington and the Potter Place Clubhouse in Waltham. in today’s health care environment, Cambridge Hospital has continued to In According to her parents, Katelyn demonstrate its commitment to NAMI Memoriam - “gave to others so much more than and to quality mental health services. she took. If she were still with us, you can be sure she would be an advocate NAMI-Cambridge/Middlesex offers Affiliate Review for all who suffer silently with the its sincerest condolences to the fam- Over the next nine months our affiliate, stigma of mental illness,” they added. ily of Katelyn Riley who died at the along with other affiliates, will be under- tender age of 22 in September after a Memorial contributions in Katelyn’s taking a review of our business organiza- tion, by laws, and operating procedures as mighty and courageous struggle with memory may be made to NAMI/ part of a national effort to assure that all mental illness. She was particularly Cambridge (National Alliance on affiliates are properly organized to fulfill determined to do her part to wipe Mental Illness) 174 Appleton St., their non-profit support, education, and out stigma against mental illness and Cambridge, MA 02138 or the Katelyn advocacy missions. Tom Martin, treasurer, joined the 40-person team her parents M. Riley Memorial Fund for her son will be reporting back to the membership Maureen and Ed Riley put together for Calvin Robinson c/o Eastern Bank 25 periodically on the progress of meeting the the 2012 NAMIWalk to this end. Melrose St., Melrose, MA 02176. goals of this review process.
www.nami-cambridgemiddlesex.org 5 NAMI-CAMBRIDGE/MIDDLESEX 174 Appleton Street Cambridge, MA 02138
Inside this issue: Save these dates...... p. 1 Important Numbers...... p. 2 Area Support Groups..... p. 3 Amador Enlightens...... p. 4
Affiliate News...... p. 5
— Tuesday, December 4, 2012 4, December Tuesday, — Auditorium Macht
Time for questions for Time ...... pm 8:00-8:30
Presentations ...... pm 7:00-8:00
Refreshments/social time Refreshments/social ...... pm 6:30-7:00
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