Support
Education
Advocacy
Monique Jevne
iQ iiiHow did you first learn about NAMI NH and how long have you been involved with the organization?
My first conscious connection to NAMI was many years ago when I dropped in on a NAMI Connections support group meeting on the west coast. It was so helpful to be with folks just like me and to talk openly about what was going on in my life. So for a many years I was just a drop in non-supporting member of various Connections groups as I moved all across our great country. During the last three years, I moved to New Hampshire and finally settled down! My family joined NAMI NH and we have been much more active.
iQ iii Tell us about the new Connections group you started in New London
I never forgot the benefits of NAMI Connections and really wanted one in the Upper Valley, so I asked the NH Connections Coordinator if training was available, which it was, and started advertising in our neighborhood. Now our group is about eight or ten strong and we feel like it has rooted. We meet weekly at New London Hospital which has a great room and feels good to all of us.
iQ iii Can you share what your NAMI NH volunteer roles are and have been?
I also love to give In Our Own Voice presentations. We talk with Educational Facilities, Faith Communities, Law Enforcement and Medical Treatment Facilities in an effort to inform and eliminate stigma. Last week I participated in a Life Interrupted presentation at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center to room full of 3rd year Psychiatrists’ residents. The Office of Consumer and Family Affairs sponsored this presentation and we are hoping to find more and more ways to work with this section of the Bureau of Behavioral Health of NH Department of Health and Human Services.
I co-facilitated a Family to Family class last spring. There really is nothing like this incredible Best Practice NAMI program to get folks talking about mental illness and how to get past some hurdles within the family dynamics. We are looking forward to another class in spring 2012.
Of course it is an annual high point to participate in the NAMI NH Walk and this year I was so inspired by a brand new Team Leader named Brittany LeBrun. At nineteen, she shares her enthusiasm for stigma-busting with all ages and in her first ever attempt at this, raised over $1800 to help NAMI’s causes.
iQ iii You attended the NAMI National Conference as the NH Consumer Representative for NAMI's National Consumer Council. What did you learn that you brought back to NH?
I have taken the NAMI NH Advocacy Training at least twice in order to really GET what is going on. As a result I have made myself available to my districts legislators as a voice and resource on NAMI and Mental Illness topics. NAMI has its’ own National Consumer Council which meets at the National Convention every year and by phone conference bi-monthly. In July, 2011, I attended the five day convention in Chicago as NAMI NH’s Representative to the National Consumer Council. The council has a lot going on with respect to keeping NAMI business consumer centered along with family centered. I joined the Welcome and Orientation Committee which works on helping new Representative’s get started on the ground running.
iQ iii We heard that you took a cross country trip this summer. Are there any highlights that you would like to share?
My husband John and I adore living in New London, NH. We hike the woods almost every day. We took a two month trip across country by auto last spring and have over two hundred pictures of National Parks and B&B’s and animals to remember it by. The high point for me was seeing my son David for a few days in Oregon. I also have a daughter named Rachel who is a Captain in the US Air Force and a second year Resident in Ophthalmology who just got engaged to be married next year.
