The National Alliance on Mental Illness in partnership with the Mental Health Association in Santa Barbara County is offering a series of 12 weekly classes structured to help caregivers understand and support individuals with serious mental illnesses while maintaining their own well-being.
In addition to gaining knowledge about their relatives’ mental disorders, class members will be taught coping skills, such as handling crisis and relapse, and will get information about medications, listening and communication techniques, problem-solving, recovery and rehabilitation, and self-care in the midst of worry and stress.
The course is taught by a team of trained NAMI family member volunteers who know what it’s like to have a loved one struggling with a serious brain disorder.
The classes are free for close family members, partners and significant others of individuals with major depression, bipolar disorder (formerly called manic depression), schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, borderline personality disorder, panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, and co-occurring brain disorders and addictive disorders.
Registration is required. For more information and to see if you qualify for these free classes, click here or call Michaelo Rosso-Bálcazar at 805.884.8440 x105.
— Kelly Kapaun is a publicist.