Pardon our dust while we renovate!
We are adding a host of new pages filled with great content. So if you click on a link and
it doesn't take you there, not to worry. That just means we are getting that page ready! Check back frequently as the site is updated.
20th Anniversary Conference section now live.
Register today!
Children's Mental Health Awareness Week is Here!
The National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health declares the first full week in May as National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week to increase the public awareness of well-being and human development of our nation’s children and youth.
The National Federation invites all of its local chapters and statewide organizations to use this week to promote positive mental health, well-being and social development for all children and youth. Join the National Federation in sending out the following messages:
- Mental health is essential to overall health and well being.
- Serious emotional and mental health disorders in children and youth are real and treatable.
- Children and youth with mental health challenges and their families deserve access to services and supports that are family driven, youth guided and culturally appropriate.
- Stigma associated with mental illness should no longer exist.
The National Federation will again sell green ribbons in preparation for Children’s Mental Health Awareness week. Let us work together to exceed last year’s total of 100,000 green ribbons worn during Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Please plan your mental health awareness activities and share your ideas with all of us.This year, Magellan Health Services is again our primary co-sponsor. Thanks Magellan!
Special note to Federation Chapters, State Organizations and Partner Organizations: We will be sending FREE green ribbons to our National Federation of Families chapters (50 ribbons), state organizations (100 ribbons) and partner organization (25 ribbons). Additional ribbons can be purchased for 25 cents a ribbon!!! Contact Marion Mealing at the national office (240-403-1901) to order your green ribbons and get all of the details for a fantastic week! This year the National Federation is also offering green ribbon lapel pins!!! Download the order form here.
Check out what's happening on Awareness Day!
National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day (Awareness Day) is a day for SAMHSA and the initiatives and communities it supports to promote positive youth development, resilience, recovery, and the transformation of mental health services delivery for children and youth with serious mental health needs and their families. Awareness Day raises awareness of effective programs for children's mental health needs; demonstrates how children's mental health initiatives promote positive youth development, recovery, and resilience; and shows how children with mental health needs thrive in their communities.
The theme for this year's national event is Thriving in the Community, with a special emphasis on how high school youth who receive the services they need are more likely to have positive outcomes, such as better grades, and less likely to have negative outcomes, such as involvement with the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Find out all of the details at the Awareness Day Website Page.
Working Definition of Family-Driven Care
January 2008
Definition of Family-Driven Care
Family-driven means families have a primary decision making role in the care of their own children as well as the policies and procedures governing care for all children in their community, state, tribe, territory and nation. This includes:
- Choosing culturally and linguistically competent supports, services, and providers;
- Setting goals;
- Designing, implementing and evaluating programs;
- Monitoring outcomes; and
- Partnering in funding decisions.
Guiding Principles of Family-Driven Care
- Families and youth, providers and administrators embrace the concept of sharing decision-making and responsibility for outcomes.
- Families and youth are given accurate, understandable, and complete information necessary to set goals and to make informed decisions and choices about the right services and supports for individual children and their families.
- All children, youth, and families have a biological, adoptive, foster, or surrogate family voice advocating on their behalf and may appoint them as substitute decision makers at any time.
- Families and family-run organizations engage in peer support activities to reduce isolation, gather and disseminate accurate information, and strengthen the family voice.
- Families and family-run organizations provide direction for decisions that impact funding for services, treatments, and supports and advocate for families and youth to have choices.
- Providers take the initiative to change policy and practice from provider-driven to family-driven.
- Administrators allocate staff, training, support and resources to make family-driven practice work at the point where services and supports are delivered to children, youth, and families and where family and youth run organizations are funded and sustained.
- Community attitude change efforts focus on removing barriers and discrimination created by stigma.
- Communities and private agencies embrace, value, and celebrate the diverse cultures of their children, youth, and families and work to eliminate mental health disparities.
Everyone who connects with children, youth, and families continually advances their own cultural and linguistic responsiveness as the population served changes so that the needs of the diverse populations are appropriately addressed.
Download the working definition here
Twenty years of amazing conferences!
Sandra Spencer, Executive Director delivered an amazing retrospective look at the Federation conference over the past twenty years during the Federations 20th annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia November 20 - 23, 2008. The entire audience took a trip down memory lane revisiting some amazing keynote presentations by noted dignitaries such as Marion Wright Edelman, Jonathan Kozol, Maya Angelou, Cornel West, and Geoffery Canada... just to name a few!
Don't miss our 21st annual conference December 3 - 6, 2009. The conference will be held at the Hyatt Washington Capitol Hill and is not to be missed! We are planning some very special events to celebrate 20 years as an officially recognized not for profit organization solely devoted to improving services and supports for youth with emotional challenges and their families. Details coming soon!
Our 20th Annual Conference was a huge success!
Consuelo Kickbusch was not to be missed! She mesmerized the audience with her heartfelt message of hope and inspiration. Because of her strong dedication to saving the youth of America living in the same barrios she did as a child, Kickbusch has worked with over one million children, their parents and educators, in the roughest neighborhoods in America, covering 43 states. She inspires these young “diamonds in the rough” by encouraging them to believe that “we can all make our dreams come true, to not give up hope, but rather to take charge of your lives, make a real difference in your families/communities and follow a disciplined road map to success.” Read more about Consuelo Kickbush here.
Did you attend Policy Day?
We sure hope so! It was our most energizing Policy Day training yet. Barry Duncan was our featured speaker and provided a most uplifting content-rich presentation on What's Right with You? - A provocative look at how to capitalize on strengths and cultivate power as an advocate. Drawing on two of his most well-known books, “The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy” and “What’s Right with You! Debunking Dysfunction and Changing Your Life,” Dr. Duncan delivered a powerful message of HOPE that honored the importance of personal values and shared cultures. It was a powerful message delivered with fun and high energy. Who knew Federation members could dance to Aretha at the drop of a hat?
