African American Resources

NEW! 

• NAMI Sharing Hope: Understanding Mental Health, a NAMI outreach and education initiative for African American faith communities. This initiative's goals are to decrease mental health stigma in this community, increase awareness of mental health recovery, and to introduce NAMI education and support programs. Follow the above link for details.

Fact Sheets

• African American Community Mental Health Fact Sheet
• Why Should African American Churches Care about Mental Illness?   

Manuals

• African American Outreach Resource Manual

• Working with Congregations to Reach African American Families with Mental Illness

Additional Materials

• African American Families and Mental Health: What You Need to Know: the electronic version of our popular booklet for the African American community with ordering information.
• NPR News and Notes Series on African American Mental Health
  NPR News and Notes March 2008 series on "mental illness, racial disparities in mental health care, and perceptions and issues surrounding the topic, with a focus on African Americans"
• Building Bridges in Black Churches
  (Featured in NAMI FaithNet) In the black community, mental illness is often stigmatized and undiagnosed. As Rose Hardy, an ordained minister in the Unity Fellowship Church, noticed, church members are comfortable standing up in services to talk about their afflictions, like HIV, and drug or alcohol addiction, but mental illness remains a hushed topic. Read about how Hardy discovered the Promoting Emotional Wellness and Spirituality (PEWS) program and utilized it to build bridges between black churches and mental health awareness programs.
• Suicide Among African Americans
  A study featured as a NAMI top news story November 8, 2006 that could help explode the myth that black suicides are rare was released in November 2006 by the Univ. of Michigan. Read the abstract of the study or access the full article on the Journal of the American Medicine Association website.
• Stress Among African American Adolescents Studied
  The Preventing Chronic Disorders Journal published the "Shifting the Lens" study in April 2006.  This study explores stress & coping among urban African American adolescents.
• Proceedings from A Listening Forum with Black Psychiatrists
  This document includes excerpts and summarizes the issues and recommendations offered during a dialogue between NAMI and leading Black Psychiatrists based in the U.S. that was held on October 7, 2002.
• Souls of Black Men
  The Black Mental Health Alliance for Education and Cosultation, Inc. invited a group of African American men to share their thoughts and experiences with regard to mental health.  This fact sheet represents their voices  - uncensored and unscripted. 

Partner Links

• National Organization of People of Color Against Suicide

Links to Other Organizations

• Association of Black Psychologists
• Black Mental Health Alliance

Join NAMI today!