Participants will learn the necessary skills to conduct a rigorous and effective 8-week course in your community. Topics covered in the training include critical information and strategies related to care giving, incorporating presentations, discussions and exercises. This helps provide the necessary tools for a better understanding of the individual living with mental illness. This class uses a guided group process to help families gain practical insight, obtain important information about research and resiliency along with increasing their emotional learning skills.

Willing to complete the online training no later then 2 weeks before the in-person training.

To be a successful NAMI Family-to-Family teacher, you need to respond to others in a non-judgmental way, you need to be a good listener with an empathetic ear, and you need to be willing to talk about your experience as a family member of someone living with a mental illness.

Trainees must have attended and completed a Family-to-Family class as a participant. Trainees agree to attend the entire class. Trainees must demonstrate the qualifications needed to become a good NAMI teacher by the end of training. Trainees may be asked to improve their skills in particular key areas and repeat the training before they may become certified. All applicants will participate in a phone screening interview with the class leaders prior to being accepted into the class. Minimum age to become a Family-to-Family teacher is 18 years old.

By taking this teacher training you are committed to co-teaching the Family-to-Family class, consisting of 8 weeks of material, at least twice in a 24-month (2 year) period in cooperation with your local NAMI affiliate.

You will need to register and interview all prospective students before the class. Each weekly class requires a lot of pre-class preparation. In some affiliates, the teacher also needs to find a location for the classes and take care of advertising and publicity. You will be required to send periodic reports to State and National for their record keeping and upload data into the National NAMI Education Data tracking program. The classes involve reading aloud from NAMI course materials, so applicants need to be comfortable with this.

NAMI Washington will pay for meals, snacks, lodging and all training materials. Your NAMI affiliate is asked to cover your travel and other expenses that you may incur to attend this training. Lodging will be at a nearby hotel, and is double occupancy. If you require single occupancy, arrangements will need to be made prior to attendance by the attendee and there will be additional costs which will be the responsibility of the attendee. In order to reserve a space, a $50 refundable registration deposit from your affiliate is required at the time of registration. If you need to cancel after being accepted, notify the NAMI Washington staff no later than a week before the training so we can fill your spot, or your affiliate will lose its $50 registration deposit. Cancelled spots are filled with applications from the waiting list for the class, not by sending another affiliate member.