National Alliance on Mental Illness
Advocacy Services

NAMI Advocacy Services

NAMI is recognized as the preeminent voice on Capitol Hill and in state houses across the country for the millions of Americans living with serious mental illness. NAMI advocates have fought for policy changes that raise the bar on mental illness care and promote treatment and research on par with other illnesses.

Our advocacy efforts provide a unique voice for people who live with mental illness and their families in state and federal public and private-sector policies that facilitate research, end discrimination, reduce barriers to successful life in the community and promote timely, comprehensive and effective mental health services and supports. State and local NAMI leaders work steadily to influence critical national policy debates as they unfold.

NAMI's Child-Adolescent Action Center (CAAC) works to improve the lives of children and adolescents living with mental illnesses and their families through advocacy, support and education. CAAC offers resources and technical assistance to NAMI affiliates at the state and local levels. CAAC focuses on mental health system reform that promises to improve the lives of children and adolescents with mental illnesses and their families. CAAC's goal is to build and support grassroots advocacy to ensure an expanded systems reform agenda at the local, state and national levels.

NAMI recognizes that people of color face life-threatening disparities in access to high quality mental health care. Many studies and policy reports point to the great disparities of minority mental health in this country and the resulting toll on our society.

But diversity goes beyond race and ethnicity. NAMI's Multi-Cultural Action Center strives to represent and advocate for America's broad cultural and life groups that are outside the mainstream. The center works to focus attention on system reform to ensure access to culturally competent services and treatment for all Americans and particularly to help and support families of diverse communities who are dealing with mental illness.

NAMI's CIT Technical Resource Center serves to supply mental health care, law enforcement, advocacy workers and people who live with mental illness with the latest information about Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for law enforcement professionals. The NAMI CIT Technical Resource Center serves as a repository of information about CIT programs nationwide.

The center facilitates ongoing communications between CIT programs and engages in national networking to establish standards and promote the expansion of CIT. The Center produces an e-newsletter, CIT in Action, and maintains an online networking community, which provides announcements and urgent news on jail diversion, CIT, and forensic issues.

NAMI's efforts to educate people with mental illness and their families regarding the real-life implications of public policy are ongoing.