NAMI In Our Own Voice: Living with Mental Illness Panel Discussion Participants: Carole Ballard, ADAMHSCC Ellen Riehm, NAMI of Greater Cleveland Lisa Marie Griffin, NAMI IOOV Presenter Karen Curlis, NAMI IOOV Presenter

In Our Own Voice: The What IOOV was introduced in 1996 as Living with Schizophrenia and the name was later changed to In Our Own Voice. The program is now active in 44 states and there have been over 500,000 audience members reached through this training model.

In Our Own Voice: CIT Introduction Law enforcement officers are introduced to IOOV on the first day of CIT training. Officers learn from consumers with mental illness up front about the stages of recovery. Officers have an opportunity to interact and engage with consumers in recovery and not through a crisis.

In Our Own Voice IOOV was introduced to the Crisis Intervention Team training in Cleveland in 2008. Since that time, IOOV was presented about 24 times reaching 720 law enforcement officers.

In Our Own Voice: In Our Own Voice (IOOV) is a unique education program developed by NAMI, in which two trained peer speakers share compelling personal stories about living with mental illness and achieving recovery. The presentation is divided into 5 segments Dark Days Acceptance Treatment Coping Tips Successes, Hopes and Dreams

In Our Own Voice: Dark Days Speakers explore feelings and experiences that occurred during their darkest moments of living with mental illness. Benefit to CIT Training-police encounter the mentally ill during their dark days. This segment helps officers see the “why” of how these days came and the outcome.

In Our Own Voice: Acceptance Speakers explain their personal experience of how they learned to accept the reality of having a mental illness. Benefit to CIT Training: Officers learn that recovery is possible with acceptance.

In Our Own Voice: Treatment Speakers explore what treatment milieus worked for them and why. Benefit to CIT Training: Officers learn that treatment for mental illness involves other milieus such as counseling, etc.

In Our Own Voice: Coping Strategies Speakers share their personal coping strategies and wellness. Benefit to CIT Training: Officers learn that there are a broad variety of coping strategies other than just taking medication.

In Our Own Voice: Successes, Hopes and Dreams Speakers share the outcome of setting goals while pursuing personal dreams. Benefit to CIT Training: Officers learn that consumers have short term and long term dreams and outcomes for themselves.

In Our Own Voice: The Value IOOV sets the tone for the CIT week by introducing officers to consumers as educators to the learning process. IOOV also provides law enforcement officers with an interactive dialogue with consumers.

In Our Own Voice: “All officers should attend” “The information provided was very useful. I can apply these techniques on my job as a Police Dispatcher as well as any personal contact that I may have with someone suffering from mental illness. The presenters were great! “Good Informative Presentation, nice to have actual people speak on their experiences” “All officers should attend” “It showed the other side of mental illness.”

In Our Own Voice: Questions? Interested in bringing IOOV to your CIT training ? Go to NAMI.org to find your state NAMI office and contact them. Or email: namieducation@nami.org