Tom Lambert - NAMI Cook County, Northern Suburban, Ill.

Tom Lambert is an ordained Deacon for the Archdiocese of Chicago and is currently serving at Our Lady of Mt Carmel Parish in Chicago. In 2000, Lambert completed serving 10 years on the Board of Directors for the State of Illinois’ National Alliance on Mental Illness including a two year term as president.

Tom co-chairs the National Catholic Partnership on Disability’s (NCPD) Council on Mental Illness located in Washington, D.C. He is the editor of NCPD’s Council on Mental Illness monthly newsletter. Lambert also serves as president of Faith and Fellowship, a faith based outreach program to people with a mental illness in Oak Park, Ill. He is on the Board of Pathways To Promise, a national interfaith organization for outreach to people with mental illness and their families.

Over the past 20 plus years, Lambert along with others initiated an annual Archdiocesan Mass celebrating the lives of people with a mental illness, their families and mental healthcare workers. Lambert authored the booklet Mental Illness and Faith Community Outreach and has written and spoken nationally about spirituality and mental illness and how faith communities can get involved in outreach, advocacy and justice issues.