NAMI On Campus

NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness) On Campus is a club at CU Boulder under the Boulder County branch of the nationwide NAMI organization. NAMI’s efforts are countrywide in advocating for awareness, education, and support towards mental health and those who may experience it. The organization has numerous local and statewide branches across the US.

NAMI’s model is different from other organizations in that their advocates and leaders are not trained professionals in mental health, but rather people who have lived experiences with the very mental health conditions they are bringing awareness to. They are driven to uplift the voices of those with personal experiences rather than psychologists or professionals in the field who may not have personal experiences with mental health conditions. NAMI Boulder County is a Boulder-local branch, and NAMI On Campus is a university club that receives funding through them.

NAMI On Campus (at CU Boulder) is a student-run club that follows the same efforts as the nationwide organization which is advocating for, creating support, and education for those with mental health issues and/or their loved ones. They will periodically hold talks on mental health where they invite speakers, often from the higher-up branches of the organization and other speakers not originally affiliated with NAMI. They recently held a talk, Mental Health 101, with a speaker from NAMI Boulder County. The club wishes to bring campuswide awareness to the common mental health issues that the majority of university populations deal with and aid in the ongoing efforts towards destigmatizing those same issues. Specifically, they wish to bring those efforts towards depression, anxiety, and ADHD as they are most common among university students.

The younger branches are also dedicating themselves to spreading their awareness and advocacy through social media platforms, such as TikTok. NAMI On Campus has its own TikTok page: @namioncampusboulder. By using these platforms, the younger members hope to bring an even wider outreach to those who may benefit from NAMI. NAMI is working to raise awareness and continue destigmatizing mental health and its surrounding issues by providing necessary information on mental health.

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)

™ Nationwide organization across the US

™ Has smaller statewide and local branches

™ Advocacy, awareness, education, and support

™ Lived-experience driven model; leaders more experienced through personal experiences of mental health than trained professionals in mental health or psychology

NAMI Boulder County

™ Local branch of NAMI in the city of Boulder

™ Funds NAMI On Campus

™ Advocacy, awareness, education, and support

™ Speaks at talks from NAMI On Campus

NAMI On Campus (at CU Boulder)

™ CU Boulder club

™ Student-run club for mental health

™ Branch under NAMI Boulder County

™ Advocacy, awareness, education, support, and destigmatization

™ Destigmatize through education

™ Facilitate thoughtful discussion around mental health

™ Periodically holds talks with guests from larger NAMI branches

Contacts:

Zack Lineaweaver, President namiboulder@colorado.edu

Bailey Paschal, Vice-President bailey.paschal@colorado.edu

Dr. Jennifer Schwartz, Faculty Advisor jennifer.schwartz@colorado.edu

Websites

NAMI Website: Home | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness

Vision, Mission, and Values: What We Do |

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness

Boulder County Branch: Find Your Local NAMI

| NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness

NAMI On Campus Club page (on CU

Organizations): Organization Details | Presence

Discord Server: https://discord.com/ invite/HNdTG896BD