Category Archives: Recovery

September General Meeting Tonight

Posted on by

7:30 PM Monday, September 18, 2017

The Speaker for September will be Yvonne Miranda of Project Return Peer Support Network (PRPSN). Yvonne is the Regional Recovery Supporter for the South Bay/Long Beach area. PRPSN offers a variety of services to persons with a mental illness including Hacienda of Hope, warm line and self-help groups. Yvonne will tell us about their services and especially the groups in the South Bay.

The Project Return groups meet weekly in a variety of locations for discussion, friendship and social activities. For many, these peer support groups are important steps towards recovery, self-help and wellness. Each group is individualized and is self-directed. Activities and curriculum are created by the facilitators and group participants.As one of the Regional Recovery Area Supporters Yvonne works with the help group facilitators develop their skills and give feedback to the group.

We are working with Project Return to link our Peer to Peer Program and Connections Support Group for persons with a mental illness with their activities. We are piloting a program with Kaiser to have better connections from the clinical programs to these support groups.

Please come and learn how persons with a mental illness can become involved in these programs and how NAMI South Bay can help support their efforts.

The Caring and Sharing Support Groups will meet at 6 PM and the regular meeting at 7:30 PM will meet at the First Lutheran Church 2900 Carson in Torrance.

 

Call to Action — Long Beach Needs a Showing of Support

Posted on by

Long Beach City Council Meeting
Tuesday, May 23rd at 5:00 PM
333 W. Ocean Blvd.
Long Beach 90802
*******************************************
Address of Proposed Site:
3200 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach

Please come and support the Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center. These services are urgently needed to assist people with mental health disorders and reduce the long waiting times in emergency rooms. If this site is denied there is not a backup plan and this essential service for those in a mental health crisis will be lost to Long Beach. Your support at the Planning Commission Meeting was wonderful. It is now time to finish this process and get started with helping the community.

Parking will be validated and FREE inside the parking structure at 332 W. Broadway. The parking structure entrance is located off W. Broadway (one-way street). Take parking ticket inside the Council Chambers with you. (Follow the blue arrows to get to the City Hall building) the “validation” stamp machine is located at the front of the Council Chambers on the first floor (in front of Minute Clerk’s desk).

There is a clear need for this center, and the location has been carefully selected. Not everyone understands the need for this facility, and some actually oppose it. However, the practices and procedures of this facility will not negatively affect the neighborhood. (CLICK HERE to see answers to commonly asked questions.) Your help is needed.

Because of the shortage of psychiatric mobile response teams, police and sheriff departments in Long Beach and surrounding cities have the difficult task of responding to mental health-related calls. The Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center is a facility that will save law enforcement time in the field, will decrease the burden on hospital emergency rooms, and will help prevent unnecessary incarceration by providing medical treatment instead.

BHUCC will be a place where people with mental illness can go to be stabilized (instead of going to the hospital ER). It can be compared to an Urgent Care Center (where people often go for a medical emergency instead of going to the hospital ER).

The BHUCC provides:

  • Crisis stabilization service
  • Up to 12 adults and 6 adolescents (estimate about 30 clients a day)
  • Doctors, nurses, therapists, peer counselors
  • 24/7 Outpatient Program
  • Patients may stay up to 24 hours
  • Average stay is 4 to 6 hours
  • Round the clock security staff
  • Discharged patients leave the area and return to their home and community services

Learn more at http://www.starsinc.com/bhucc

 

May is Mental Health Month

Posted on by

Each year, millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental health condition, as 1 in 5 U.S. adults will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime. However, everyone is affected or impacted by mental illness through friends and family.

Throughout May, NAMI and participants across the country are raising awareness for mental health. Each year, we fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for equal care. Each year, the movement grows stronger. Help us spread the word through the many awareness, support and advocacy activities below by showing you’re #IntoMentalHealth.

 

Advocacy Alert

Posted on by

Mental health coverage
is at risk

Congress is bringing back the American Health Care Act, which would leave millions of Americans without mental health coverage and strip Medicaid of billions of dollars in funding. Please remember that Medicaid in California is Medi-Cal. And the bill has gotten worse.

The recently introduced “MacArthur Amendment” would let states get waivers allowing health insurance plans to not cover mental health and substance use treatment and charge people with mental illness more.

It’s outrageous to even suggest that mental health coverage is optional and to charge people more because they have a mental health condition.

Medicaid coverage is also under threat. It covers important mental health services that help people with mental illness get better and stay better.

Efforts are being made to generate enough votes which we need stop. We have fought for mental health parity for a long time and this act would reverse years of effort and mean many would not have mental health coverage. Your mental health coverage is at risk.

Tell Congress to #KeepWhatWorks and REJECT the American Health Care Act.

Call Now

Email Now

Thank you for your advocacy efforts.

Hospitals Should Be Places For Healing, Not Harm

Posted on by

From NAMI California

By Jessica Cruz
NAMI California Executive Director

Training Illustration Dollarphotoclub_97425553The treatment of mental illness in hospitals remains a severe crisis in this country – costing millions of dollars each year as well as countless lives lost or unjustly criminalized.

The recent New York Times report, “When the Hospital Fires the Bullet,” and corresponding This American Life segment, “My Damn Mind,” dramatically portray the challenges faced by individuals and family members seeking emergency psychiatric care – and the tragedies that can follow when staff are not prepared to care for someone in crisis.

Alan Peon, like many individuals experiencing a psychiatric crisis, sought help at a local emergency room. He and his family rightfully expected trained mental health professionals to evaluate and treat his psychiatric emergency condition with compassionate, quality, culturally appropriate and timely care in a safe, nonthreatening environment – exactly what we expect when we seek treatment for any medical condition. Instead, he was shot in the chest and nearly died.

Click this link to read the full article

Some of the “Other” Common Symptoms in Schizophrenia

Posted on by

Schizophrenia is most easily recognized by the symptoms that define it, such as visual and auditory hallucinations (e.g., “seeing things” and “hearing voices”) and delusions, including paranoia. But other symptoms are also extremely common.

Apathy, for instance, is often observed. If a person is experiencing auditory or visual delusions and paranoia – “psychosis” – they they are less likely to engage in day to day activities because the voices and suspicions are controlling the majority of their life. A Person living with schizophrenia can still experience depression even when they are not having other symptoms, the person will show signs of apathy, which can be attributed to the depression. Excessive doses of antipsychotics can also sometimes contribute to apathy.

Negative Symptoms Associated with Schizophrenia

Between 40% and 50% of people living with schizophrenia who have been treated and are recovering

will show evidence of negative symptoms. Negative symptoms include:

• Emotional flatness or lack of expressiveness.
• Inability to start and follow through with activities.
• Lack of pleasure or interest in life.

One distinction of some people living with schizophrenia is they do not expect enjoyable activities to give them pleasure, which likely causes them to not engage in pleasure-seeking behaviors.

Related articles

Successful Meeting about Hearing Voices

Posted on by

NAMI South Bay thanks its guests and members for a productive discussion at last night’s meeting. The group discussed the Hearing Voices support group at Harbor UCLA, led by Brad Stevens, LCSW, Psychiatric Social Worker. Several publications were mentioned and two are shown here with links for those members that were interested in following up:

Living with Voices–50 Stories of Recovery

 

Hearing Voices a Common Human Experience

 

Enhanced by Zemanta