Lake County's Voice On Mental Illness
The AMI Movement began with Two Women.
NAMI Illinois Turns 40 Years Old!
NAMI Lake County Illinois has created the 40th Anniversary Project along with a group of interested affiliates. It is a celebration of all things NAMI. We want to recognize those that came before us as we look ahead to the next century! Scroll this whole page for Leaders Statewide.
The Early History Before NAMI
Volunteer Advocacy Groups Helped Build Our Mental Health System
NAMI really helped to form the strongest and most robust national grassroots network for mental health advocacy.
Before NAMI, advocacy groups were a part of the network of local communities. Many of those groups have been lost to history. We hope that many NAMI affiliates will take this time to learn their full history and allow it to be recognized during this, the 40th Anniversary of the Coalition of NAMI Affiliates in Illinois!
In researching NAMI Lake County Illinois' history, a predecessor emerged, The NAMI Lake County Mental Health Society. This group, founded in 1963, started at the behest of the Waukegan Council on Churches was instrumental in gathering the data through surveys about the need for mental health services in Northern Lake County. They created, developed and managed the first community mental health counseling agency. They located in the recently closed Waukegan Emergency Hospital in the Jane Dowst Build, located on the site of what is now City Hall.
This agency would later become the Lake County Behavioral Health Department.
The President of the Lake County Mental Health Society, Paul Krieger of Waukegan would attend the NAMI national convention and approved moving forward with creating NAMI Illinois. This is the original petition created by Vi Orr to begin the process of creating the organization.
Harriet and Beverly Form the First AMI Group and It Grows
NAMI was formed in 1977, when Harriet Shetler and Beverly Young, two mothers, each with a son with schizophrenia, met over lunch to discuss the similar challenges they shared raising a child with a serious mental illness. At a second lunch, the women, both active in civic and charitable activities, decided to assemble people with similar concerns.
In April 1977, about 13 people met at a nightclub in Madison, WI. Mrs. Shetler suggested a name, Alliance for the Mentally Ill, partly because its acronym, AMI, meant “friend” in French. Within six months, 75 people had joined.
Upon hearing about a similar organization in California, Young and Shetler hit upon the bold idea of holding a national conference. They hoped that as many as 35 people would come to Madison in September, 1979, but 284 representatives from 59 groups (representing 29 states) showed up. Among them were mental health professionals, including Dr. Herbert Pardes, then director of the National Institute of Mental Health and now president and chief executive of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
https://namiwisconsin.org/about-nami-wisconsin/history/
NAMI is Nationally Formed & Harriet Shetler writes down that History
Harriet Shetler, besides being the founder, was also a journalist and had a front-row seat as NAMI formed into a national organization. In 1986, she wrote the history of the NAMI organization. The NAMI community owes a great deal of gratitude to her for recording that information.
Shirley Starr of Illinois figured prominently in that national history. She hosted the second conference at the Bismark Hotel in Chicago, became a NAMI National Board President. She represented the newly merged AMI VOICES. As Board President (1980 - 1982), the National "office" would have been located in her hometown of Chicago.
She also unselfishly decided that this new organization needed to be based in Washington DC to push national policy. She rented a studio apartment which hosted multiple NAMI guests through the years as NAMI attempted to get resources. The apartment was small and she set aside space in her closet for all overnight guests..She eventually rented space for an office in the basement of the Autism Society,
NAMI was truly an innovative and resourceful grass roots organization intent upon making change.
NAMI Illinois History
NAMI Illinois is a Coalition of Affiliates Statewide
For more than 40 years, NAMI affiliates and their predecessors have been making a difference. We will highlight a few pieces of history here and then make space to tell you why each affiliate makes Illinois great!
The NAMI Illinois History
Vi Orr is the founder of NAMI Illinois
Vi Orr (on right in the photo) is the founder of NAMI Illinois. She collected her notes in what is now known as the NAMI Illinois Notebook. Besides telling the origin story of NAMI Illinois, it also tells the early history of the NAMI Affiliates. It lists those early leaders and the work they did before the internet. Before NAMI affiliates names became standardized, it is interesting to hear the early name of these groups and to see ideas being discussed that are still relevant today. Homelessness, quality of hospital care, guardianship, employing people with lived experience, police conduct, overinvolvement of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system, and legislative advocacy were all discussed forty-years ago and are a part of the conversation today.
The NAMI Triad
Our Mission
In 1985, importance of the three levels NAMI was recognized as an important part of making change at the local, state, and national level.
Getting Information Out to Affiliates was a Big Job
See a selection of some of the logos created by the new fledgling state organization.
The round logo at the top was the one chosen as the official logo.
NAMI Illinois had an award-winning quarterly newsletter that was mailed out to a thousand people including politicians as the organization hoped to become more visible and trusted. Today's readers may not appreciate the work in getting out a newsletter. Cutting and stapling multi-page newsletter on mimeograph and/or flat bed scanners was a skill. The NAMI Stateline early editions had mastheads where the original copy had a hand drawn set of graphics at the top. Addressed by hand, later with stickers and computers, was a very slow process as the post office had lots of requirements as to how bulk mailing needed to be prepared to get the best price.
Notice the little Illinois map with "stars" for locations. A group earned its star be joining NAMI as a part of the coalition. You can watch in the notebook as the number of stars on the map increase each month.
NAMI Affiliates formed NAMI Illinois to Impact State Policy
NAMI Illinois was focused on creating a network between all the individual family groups and organization. They wanted to make sure that support and education was available statewide. In 1986, the image to the left is a calling tree to facilitate communication.
Training and Educating Voters To Be Active was a Huge NAMI Illinois Role with Agency Partnerships
In 1985, NAMI was already working cooperatively with the Mental Health Association to train our members to advocate for important legislation. The image at right is a notice of a training at NAMI Sauk Valley.
Longtime advocates, in 2022, celebrated the retirement of Dick Lockhart who worked for decades for the mental health community. Jan Holcomb would go on to become the Executive Director of the Mental Health Association of Illinois and was a long time member of the Mental Health Summit led by Mark Heyrman.
The champions of mental health policy began to work together in the pursuit of a more sensible, evidence-based community services and support.
The Housing Task Force led advocacy for 5 Housing Developmen
The Housing Task Force Began with 7 Days of Training
In 2009, three NAMI members took a CSH training program and have become a national model in how to do advocacy in creating Permanent Supportive Housing. They have helped with 5 projects as primary advocates in some of the toughest areas to overcome community opposition and fear. Hugh Brady has been a Statewide leader.
The NAMI Ice-Cream Store in 1984 Creates Vocational Opportunities for Persons with Mental Illness
Operated by AMI of Rock Island and Mercer Counties. the Ice Cream store was started with DMH funds, but had a goal to operate independently. This would have been a very early "consumer run business."
Reading further down, you learn that Frank Ware started this project as the Executive Director of AMI Rockford Mercer County.
NAMI Northern Illinois and Rosecrance will know Frank Ware as the long time director of the Janet Wattles Mental Health Center in Rockford. The Janet Wattles Center is now a part of Rosecrance and has a building named after him. It was dedicated to him upon his passing. He was beloved in the entire mental health community and an ice cream shop would have fit his idea of fun, work, and trusting his membership to create a great product as they pursued their recovery.
Tricia Hogan is Named First NIAPP President - 2019
NIAPP, the NAMI Illinois Alliance of Peer Professionals meets and forms June 12, 2019. It was formed to operate as an Association for a growing group of Peer Professionals. They agreed to affiliate with NAMI Illinois, designed a logo, and recently have grown with their own staff person funded within the State Grant.
The Awakenings Project Begins as an idea for an Art Show in 1996 for the NAMI Il Conference
The Awakenings Project’s mission is to support all artistic endeavors by people with a lived experience of mental illness. Today, it most actively exhibits and sells fine art and publishes an award-winning literary journal (The Awakenings Review). The forerunner of the Project, The Awakenings Art Show, debuted in 1997 at National Alliance on Mental Illness of Illinois and was a regular activity of the group for many years. It continues today as a separate 501c3 with administrative and support from NAMI Dupage.