The course provides family caretakers with education about mental health conditions, skills workshops, and information about available resources. The NAMI Family-to-Family curriculum includes:

  • Information about mental health conditions and treatments
  • Coping skills, handling crisis and relapse, local and national resources
  • Listening and communication techniques
  • Problem solving, limit setting, self-care

Most importantly, the course offers family members the invaluable opportunity of open conversation and mutual support in a stigma-free environment. Course participants, now more than 400,000 people nationwide, find that the Family-to-Family experience empowers them to understand and pursue paths toward healthy recovery for their loved ones, their families, and themselves.

Program Leaders

Sara Stoutland NAMI Massachusetts

Many of my family members (both living and dead) have coped with chronic depression and anxiety. This includes my son, whose mental illness was likely triggered by being diagnosed with liver disease at 16. Trained as an anthropologist, I worked as a policy researcher in urban schools and neighborhoods. Now retired, I facilitate a support group for parents with teens with special needs and another for incarcerated Moms. I look forward to teaching Family-to-Family again and learning a lot from the participants.

Denise LaCarubba NAMI Massachusetts

Supporting a loved one with schizophrenia, I experienced first-hand how mental illness affects family members, who are supporting and navigate their loved ones – and themselves - through anxiety and uncertainty. This class gave me hope! It truly broadened my perspective, helps me be a more compassionate human and as a professional DJ, (working closely with many spectrums of human behavior and heightened emotion). I participated in this same F2F course two years ago as a partner of a person with special needs, and am excited to co-teach Family-to-Family with Sara!

Registrant Information

We ask that all interested participants, even from the same family, register individually for this course. Registration will be limited to those that have officially registered.

This in an 8 week course. The materials are copyrighted and should not be copied or duplicated. We ask that you try your best not to miss more than 1-2 classes to get the full benefit. Missing more than 2 classes could result in being ineligible to receive a completion certificate at the end of this course.

To ensure you, and all other students, receive the best experience from this course, full participation from everyone is expected. We ask that all interested participants (even from the same family) register individually for this course. Attendance will be limited to those that have registered.
To maximize participant and program leader wellness, NAMI Mass has outlined the following mandatory guidelines for any in-person NAMI program activities:
● Program participants must either be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to attend in-person programming OR they must wear a mask for the entire program. Participants will attest to their vaccination status at the time of program registration.
● All people present at the program or event must be COVID-asymptomatic, regardless of their current test results.
● All program participants should wait at least 7 days from a positive COVID-19 test before returning to in-person events.
● Program participants must agree to notify NAMI Mass if they are quarantined due to a COVID-19 exposure that occurred less than one week prior to the group meeting.
● All people present at the program or event, regardless of their vaccination status, may choose to wear a mask while at the program venue, including the time before, during, and after the event.
● Masks are not required for in-person programming unless a consensus is reached by the individuals present that they would like the group to continue wearing masks.
● All people present may choose and should be able to maintain no less than three feet of social distance while at the program venue.
● NAMI Mass encourages any immunocompromised individuals who choose to participate in NAMI Mass in-person programs or events to wear face masks and maintain social distancing.
● Any attendee who is unwilling or unable to adhere to the above guidelines should be promptly removed from the venue.

Emergency Contact Information

After submitting your registration form, one of the program leaders will be in contact with you shortly regarding the next steps in the registration process.

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