Time: Next NAMI
General Meeting
Via Zoom
Details to follow soon
For more info NAMI Pomona Valley Helpline:
(909) 399-0305
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Support Groups
Everything is still up and running and on the same schedule; Classes, Support Groups, and General Meetings. It’s all just Virtual, online via the Video conferencing platform called Zoom. You can also contact the office for more info.
Connection Support Group Online
1st Tuesday of every month at 6:15 – 7:30 PM
Every Friday at 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Family Support Group Online
1st Tuesday of every month at 6:15 – 7:30 PM
4th Tuesday of every month at 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Spanish/Español Family Support Group
1st Tuesday of every month at 6:15 – 7:30 PM
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If you have any questions please feel free
to call the NAMI Pomona Valley Helpline: (909) 399-0305
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NAMI Membership Dues:
Are you Current? Donations and membership are actually tax deductible!
Membership benefits include:
- Our flagship magazine, The NAMI Advocate
- Membership with NAMI National, NAMI California, and our Pomona Valley Affiliate
- Voting privileges
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Discounts at the NAMI Store and on registration at the NAMI National Convention
- Access to all the information and features on the NAMI.org website and more
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Upcoming Classes
NAMI education classes and training programs are held throughout the year. Class seating is limited and fill quickly. Training programs are offered upon availability. Please fill out this contact form to be notified when registration for classes become available or for training program availability.
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Family to Family
The local affiliate of National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI Pomona Valley, offers its widely recognized family education course in English and Spanish.
This 12-week free course is designed for families with loved ones who have a brain illness. Illnesses addressed in this course are: Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Major Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Schizophrenia, and co-occurring mental illness and addiction brought on by
self-medication. Classes are offered in English & Spanish. Pre-registration is REQUIRED.
For more information, please contact (call or text):
Kyoni Cummings (909) 258-9864
Anyone who has previously taken Family to Family and would like to be a facilitator can contact Kyoni to get trained @ (909) 258-9864.
De Familia a Familia
NAMI Familia-a-Familia es un programa educativo, GRATIS, de 12 sesiones para familiares, parejas, amigos, y seres queridos de adultos que viven con una enfermedad mental. El curso esta diseñado para ayudar a toda la familia a entender y apoyar a seres queridos que viven con un trastorno mental, sin descuidar el propio bienestar del círculo familiar. 12 Semanas, 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Para obtener más información, póngase en contacto:
Edith (909) 214-6553
Basics
Regarding children with symptoms, a six-week course teaching the fundamentals of caring for children who have shown symptoms of mental disorder before age 13. The Family to Family course description above applies also to NAMI Basics. Pre-registration is REQUIRED.
For more information, please contact:
Kyoni (909) 625-2383
Peer to Peer
Please contact us for registration details A 10-week class for adults living with mental health challenges. This Class is:
- Free and confidential
- Held once per week for two hours
- Taught by trained Peer Mentors living in recovery themselves
- A great resource for information on mental health and recovery
For more information, please contact:
We look forward to seeing you!
For more information on any class, please contact our office:
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Mental Health Impacts and Support During COVID -19
We are all impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and we are all in this together.
To address the impacts, we have advice for those living with mental health
conditions, de-stressing tips, and more trusted information to support us all through
this difficult time.
Quick Tips
- Keep up with your treatment plan and maintain healthy habits
(diet, exercise, sleep).
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Stay informed, but consider limiting your news exposure and relying only on trusted sources, including the State of California and CDC; we are keeping our COVID-19 general information page updated with the latest information and additional resources as we get them.
- Follow advice on prevention, including washing hands and refraining from touching your face, maintaining a safe physical distance from others (six feet or more), and staying home.
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(More in our Guide to Staying informed About COVID-19.)
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Try to maintain perspective and rely on your social network for support (ways to stay connected, ways to manage stress and employ coping strategies).
- Know you are not alone and there is help if you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis.
- – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)
- – Crisis Text Line: Text NAMI to 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor to receive free, 24/7 crisis support via text message
- – NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), Monday through Friday, 10 am to 6 pm, ET
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This is not a Normal Mental Health Disaster
If SARS is any lesson, the psychological effects of the novel coronavirus will long outlast the pandemic itself.
The SARS pandemic tore through Hong Kong like a summer thunderstorm. It arrived abruptly, hit hard, and then was gone. Just three months separated the first infection, in March 2003, from the last, in June.
But the suffering did not end when the case count hit zero. Over the next four years, scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered something worrisome. More than 40 percent of SARS survivors had an active psychiatric illness, most commonly PTSD or depression. Some felt frequent psychosomatic pain. Others were obsessive-compulsive. The findings, the researchers said, were “alarming.”
The novel coronavirus’s devastating hopscotch across the United States has long surpassed the three-month mark, and by all indications, it will not end anytime soon. If SARS is any lesson, the secondary health effects will long outlast the pandemic itself.
Already, a third of Americans are feeling severe anxiety, according to Census Bureau data, and nearly a quarter show signs of depression. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the pandemic had negatively affected the mental health of 56 percent of adults. In April, texts to a federal emergency mental-health line were up 1,000 percent from the year before. The situation is particularly dire for certain vulnerable groups—health-care workers, COVID-19 patients with severe cases, people who have lost loved ones—who face a significant risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. In overburdened intensive-care units, delirious patients are seeing chilling hallucinations. At least two overwhelmed emergency medical workers have taken their own life.
To some extent, this was to be expected. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance abuse, child abuse, and domestic violence almost always surge after natural disasters. And the coronavirus is every bit as much a disaster as any wildfire or flood. But it is also something unlike any wildfire or flood. “The sorts of mental-health challenges associated with COVID-19 are not necessarily the same as, say, generic stress management or the interventions from wildfires,” says Steven Taylor, a psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics (published, fortuitously, in October 2019). “It’s very different in important ways.”
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JOY as an Option
August 5, 2020
We’re all living with similar questions about how to live with the daunting challenges of this pandemic:
- If I contact the virus, will I live?
- How long will this pandemic go on?
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How will I survive the loneliness of social isolation?
- How do I live with the enormity of other immediate crises: climate emergency, desperate migrations, unemployment rates, social unrest, racial injustice?
Native Americans have some helpful and inspiring reflections on these subjects. Several of them have spoken of this time as a “portal.” A portal to what? one might ask. A portal from one period of our planet’s history into a new, unknown, and beckoning future. An exciting time from one perspective, yet one fraught with uncertainties and perils—full of fears.
Here’s another perspective to the portal image: it offers us an invitation to a deeper, more dedicated inner life so we can cultivate the resilience and confidence to live with radical uncertainty.
Along with the image of the portal, some other indigenous and African cultures share a further revelation: They hold the radical perspective that joy is an act of resistance to the social upheaval, breakdown, and oppression sweeping the planet. They remind us that they’ve never stopped singing, dancing, celebrating, and living with joy. Even amidst the direst circumstances. They remind us that when we cultivate a positive, upbeat, and joyful outlook on life, that positive energy is a gift to the common good, a gift to the universe. A gift to ourselves.
Through joy one resists. One overcomes adversity.
What a revelation!
What a radical idea!
What gives you joy? For me, it’s often the small things — being with my grandsons, a friend’s laughter, listening to and playing music, dramatic cloud effects, the cardinal at the bird feeder. For others, it might be an inspiring poem, a passage in a book, a work of art seen on the internet, dancing with their kids. We all need to find moments of joy throughout the day, especially since many pre-pandemic sources of joy are no longer available.
Those of us living during these cataclysmic times have a choice: Will we let the darkness of depression and despair overwhelm us, or will we live each day with as much equanimity, contentment, and joy as possible. Some might protest that this is unrealistic, but one wise elder declared that cultivating joy is the very medicine that the world needs right now. Think about the world that you want to participate in creating. How we live each day becomes part of a possible new order of things.
Wendell Berry, the novelist, poet, essayist, and environmental activist, said: “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” Opening to joy in such difficult times may seem paradoxical, but again it’s an invitation to live with more lightness of being.
That phrase brings to mind His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, beloved friends who have both lived through unimaginable suffering. Their lightness of being and joy in life are a gift to all who are touched by their presence even remotely.
These reflections should end with the words of the indigenous elder. “While accepting collapse as inevitable and trying to find my place in remediating it, I do my best to be mindful in the moment and often look up at the night sky to thank the stars for keeping things in perspective.”
With blessings and love to all.
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Here is your opportunity to contribute and donate to
NAMI!
When making Amazon purchases, use Amazon Smile. Simply click through our Amazon Smile link and shop like you normally would. It costs you absolutely nothing extra, and a portion of your purchase price is donated to us.
You can also designate a Charity to contribute towards.
Choose NAMI Pomona Valley!
NAMI Wish List:
• Copy Paper (color and black & white)
• Water Bottles
• ½“ white binders with clear view front
• Laptops (used is fine) & projectors
• Gift Cards to Staples or Costco
• Paper Cups
THANK YOU!!!
You can bring donated items to the office during business hours or to our monthly event.
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NAMI POMONA VALLEY | 3115 N. Garey Avenue, Pomona, CA 91767
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