How to Get Help for You and Your Ill Relative




If you are in an emergency situation or need immediate help,

please consult our Crisis File

For non-emergency situations, NAMI-Finger Lakes can help in the following ways:

We have compiled an extensive Even More Help: Local, Regional, and National Mental Health Resources page that provides information on:

  • What is mental illness?
  • Psychiatric care in Ithaca and in surrounding cities (such as Binghamton, Buffalo, Corning, Cortland, Syracuse, and Rochester)
  • How to Find Homeless and Missing relatives
  • Dual-diagnosis (both diagnosed with mental illness & addicted to alcohol/drugs)
  • Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice system
  • Estate planning for families with ill relatives

We also have an in-progress "Navigating The Maze" page that attempts to map out & explain the Ithaca/Tompkins County mental health care system.

If your home situation has deteriorated to the point where your ill relative must leave or must be taken to the hospital for treatment, then we have prepared a sample Intervention Plan. 

Finally, these Answered Questions from the 2007 Family-fo-Family course may provide useful information for your family situation.

Support Groups:


You are invited to meet with us informally (either one-on-one or in a group setting) to chat about your situation. All members of NAMI-FL have relatives diagnosed with major mental illnesses. We know the heartache and stress you are going through, and we’ve found that simply talking about your concerns is a great emotional release.

Note that all conversations – both about your relative and our relatives – are kept confidential.

During our conversations we will listen to you as you describe your situation; offer suggestions on treatment options and care providers based on our own experiences, and help you care for yourself as you care for your ill relative.

We can also can provide pointers to specialized support groups formed by our members or by other nearby NAMI chapters. These include:

  •  An Ithaca-based support group for parents of young children diagnosed with Bipolar/Asperger's Syndrome.
  • A Syracuse-based support group for people with spouses diagnosed with a mental illness.

Our support groups meet 1st Tuesdays of each month, 7-8:30PM, and third Thursdays of each month, 1:30 to 3:30PM.  This support group is open to all - you don't have to be a NAMI Finger Lakes member to participate. Call 607-273-2462 for details or e-mail namifl@lightlink.com  

Lending Library:


We maintain a lending library of books, pamphlets, CDs, VHS Tapes, and DVDs on all aspects of mental illness, as listed in our Library Holdings.    

 To borrow books, Contact Jean Poland to let her know which book(s) you would like to borrow:

Email jp126@cornell.edu or call 266-8079

Jean will leave the book(s) in a box at on the porch of 122 Fayette Street in Ithaca for you to pick up.  She will let you know when she’s dropped it off.  When you are finished (in about 30 days), please return the book to this box and let Jean know.

Fayette Street is a short, two-block street running between West Green and Center Streets.  122 Fayette Street is on the west side between West Green and Clinton Streets.

Thank you for your interest in and support of NAMI Finger Lakes.  We hope the books are helpful and will be updating the list from time to time.

(Please leave scrap paper and pen in the box for the next person to use.)

Also, NAMI New York State has a lending library for their members.  More information is available at http://www.naminys.org/lending-library

Finally, our  Even More Help: Local, Regional, and National Mental Health Resources page lists some essential books on mental illness, family issues, and medications.

Education for Adults : The NAMI Family-to-Family Course

Starting Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012 NAMI-Finger Lakes will offer a free twelve-week Family-to-Family Education Program for family members who have close relatives diagnosed with:

Bipolar Disorder - Also Called Manic Depression

Major Depression

Schizophrenia

Schizoaffective Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder

Panic Disorder

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Dual-Diagnosis (Co-occurring Brain and Addictive Disorders)

This free series of twelve weekly classes will help family members understand and support their ill relatives while maintaining their own well-being. Class size is kept small so that everyone can share their thoughts and emotions about their own family situations, and all information is kept confidential.

The course is taught by trained volunteers who have ill relatives in their own families.  Course participants will receive extensive handouts on mental illness symptoms, diagnosis, and medications; caretaker "self-care"; and strategies for helping and communicating with our ill relatives.

The class will meet Tuesday evenings, 6:30 to 9PM from February 7  through April 24, 2011. Class size is limited to 20 people, and pre-registration is required -  call 607-351-4114 or 607-351-0888 for more information.

The course topics in the 12-week course are:

  1. Learning about feelings and facts: The normative stages of emotional reactions to the trauma of mental illness; NAMI's belief systems and principles; individual goals for the family member with mental illness.
  2. Schizophrenia, Major Depression, Mania, Schizoaffective Disorder: Diagnostic criteria; characteristic features of psychotic illnesses; clinical treatment; dealing with critical periods in mental illness; keeping a Crisis File.
  3. Mood Disorders and Anxiety Disorders: Types and subtypes of Depression and Bipolar Disorder (formerly called manic depression); causes of mood disorders; diagnostic criteria for Panic Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; clinical treatment; sharing stories of the attendees.
  4. Functions of key brain areas: Research on brain abnormalities in the major mental illnesses; chemical messengers in the brain; genetic research; infectious and developmental factors involved in mental illness; the biology of recovery.
  5. Problem-Solving Skills Workshop: How to define a problem; how to solve a problem; setting limits.
  6. Medication Review: How medications work; basic psychopharmacology of the mood disorders, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia; medication side-effects; key treatment issues; stages of adherence to medications; early warning signs of relapse.
  7. Inside Mental Illness: Understanding the subjective experience of coping with a brain disorder; problems in maintaining self-esteem and positive identity; gaining empathy.
  8. Communication Skills Workshop: How illness interferes with the capacity to communicate; how to respond when the topic is loaded; talking to the person behind the symptoms of mental illness.
  9. Self-Care: Learning about family burden: Sharing in relative groups; handling negative feelings of anger, entrapment, guilt and grief; how to balance our lives.
  10. The Vision of Potential Recovery: Learning about key principles of rehabilitation and model programs of community support; local and other services available; a first-person account of recovery.
  11. Advocacy: Challenging the power of stigma; learning how to change the system, and how families unite together against this disability.
  12. Review, sharing and evaluation.

Note that a recent study sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health found that NAMI's Family-to-Family Education program "significantly" improves coping and problem-solving abilities of family members of individuals living with mental illness. See  Outcomes of a Randomized Study of a Peer-Taught Family-to-Family Education Program for Mental Illness, Lisa B. Dixon et. al, Psychiatric Services, Vol. 62, No. 6.

Education for Children: The" Breaking the Silence" Program

We feel that it is very important to teach children that mental illness is a no-fault brain disorder.  To this end, NAMI Finger Lakes will come into any classroom - upper elementary, middle school, and high school - and  present the "Breaking The Silence" Program.

"Breaking the Silence: Teaching the Next Generation About Mental Illness" (BTS) is an educational package designed to teach students on three grade levels, upper elementary, middle school, and high school about serious mental illness. It was created in 1999 by the NAMI-Queens/Nassau Education Committee with funding from NAMI’s Campaign to End Discrimination and the support of NAMI-NYS.

This attractive, easy to use educational package for three grade levels, upper elementary, middle school and high school, uses stories to humanize serious mental illness and teach that these illnesses are no-fault brain disorders. Students also examine the role the media plays in perpetuating stigma.

"One of the biggest pluses of "Breaking the Silence" is that the kids now view and talk about mental illness with the same ease and sensitivity as cancer or heart disease."
 Peter Fitzpatrick, Middle School Health Teacher, Hicksville, NY 

For more information, see the NAM National Breaking The Silence Web Page:  

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