The National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI for short is just that.
Providing support, education, signs/symptoms, and much more, NAMI focuses on providing support to those who are affected by mental illness.
Recently on our Instagram page, we put up some stories with questions from NAMI’s StigmaFree quiz. Our goal was to help engage our student population and get people thinking about what they can do to support their friends, family, and community members who are affected. NAMI is a great resource that we wanted to make available during this time, as it is Suicide Awareness Month. Educating ourselves and others and providing resources is a small step we can take to help build a StigmaFree environment on campus. Not only does NAMI offer a quiz to help individuals think about their actions, but they also have an online pledge that can be taken. This pledge allows you to help facilitate the change in which NAMI is hoping to achieve – ending stigma and creating positive environments for those affected by mental illness.
It is rare that any of us are perfect and will walk around without a bias on the occasion, but participating in the quiz and taking the pledge, can help us put a little more accountability on one another to work on creating safe and inviting environments around our campus. If you would like to learn more about who NAMI is and what they do, go to this link.