The Importance of Advocacy

The Importance of Advocacy

we are here today at the blue star Memorial Woods Park to um go on the NAMI Walk um with hundreds of other families who’ve been touched by uh mental illness there are many things going on at the same time one we’re creating a wonderful sense of community about people like ourselves who’ve been touched by mental illness and people who really care people who are involved with organizations and I think a lot of individuals and their family members and we’re really helping to reinforce uh the message that we’re not alone and we’re here together to support each other it’s critical that our clients know that we care about them and it’s not just trilogy but literally hundreds of other people who they don’t know and that they’re part of this larger Community the message is I hope is affirming that we are with them and they are with us and we are all one this is my first NAMI Walk actually I’m very excited I’ve been with Trilogy almost two years now so it’s it’s fun to finally get out and support Nami changing lives one step at a time and this is a walk that trilogy has participated in for two years in a row um so we come out every year and we support Nami because Nami is a great supporter of mental health and that’s what we do I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2009 and I’ve been fighting an uphill battle ever since and I my recovery has been um very positive and I’ve had a lot of support from a lot of different people including NAMI so it means a lot for me to support them today just walking along in the forest reserves is beautiful it has such a beautiful path if the bicyclist don’t run us over it’s very important for individuals to support organizations like Nami and Trilogy because we need to get awareness out there that mental illness is not just the few there’s a great great population with mental illness and we need support from our community to survive this is my second year participating in the walk and I just love it it’s a great opportunity to come out and show your support for raising funds to end the stigma of mental illness one of the main reasons is it’s important is because um Trilogy as well as Nami provide a lot of uh services and they offer classes and resources uh at no cost uh to the consumer and by participating in the walk it helps us to raise funds to help uh underwrite the cost of providing these services and it’s so important that the consumer uh has resources has information knows where to where to go uh when they have issues with SSI information about housing information about um where to go for medical care more and more we see people getting more active in terms of writing letters to their uh uh legislators and other elected officials um I get um um I know personally that when I uh send a letter to uh janakowski or one of my other elected officials about an issue I do get a response back so I do know that they’re listening and I do so that’s why it’s so important when you get those emails telling you to sign a petition or to send an email to your elected official because they do pay attention to those because we are the ones who put them where they are I’m really good and exhausted I’m very very tired it was great it was great it was a good walk I’m hoping this uh rais some fun some awareness really to mental illness so that uh people get the the assistance that they need Trilogy is a fabulous organization and we do wonderful work and we want everyone to know that um that we’re out there and available as a resource for the community um we don’t work in isolation we work in collaboration with other organizations and um we just want to send a message about who we are and how much we care about the people we serve go trilogy for

Mental illness affects 1 in 4 individuals in the United States. By joining with Trilogy Behavioral Healthcare in advocating for mental health services, you are helping to raise awareness and reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.