As we approach what we hope will be a beautiful summer, and the end of our current fiscal year, we need to take a look back at the past 12 months. We began the year back in July getting ready for our fall programs. By late August we had three full family-to-family classes, a basics class, two family support groups, two consumers support groups, and a parent support group running. By December we had added two new family support groups in Naperville and Elmhurst and started a brand new Drop-in-Center for young adults ages 18 to 30, in Glen Ellyn at the Ackerman Sports Center. We also added a new MICAP (Mental Illness Court Alternative Program) support group for participants and graduates of the program. Our educational programs added WRAP, (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) to the agenda and held two back-to-back classes for consumers, also in Glen Ellyn.

Our Recovery Connections Hospital program enjoyed some growth as we added Glen Oaks Hospital to our patient presentations. At Good Samaritan hospital alone, we have reached 700 participants and similar numbers at CDH. Today we have 65 active consumer and family presenters who bravely go out and share their stories; they are changing lives. In our general education and outreach, we presented to the police (including SWAT teams), paramedics, medical and nursing students, hospital staff, churches, community groups, and college classes, all with an end goal of educating those that have the power to make the difference in the lives of individuals living with mental illnesses and their families.

Our School program has been very active with 16 facilitators and consumer speakers specially trained to present within the schools; with over 190 presentations and 8,700 students, teachers, and parents reached this past year in DuPage, we know we are getting the information out to where it needs to go and importantly touching the lives of the students.

In late November we hired Tim Traynor, our development director. This has meant that we have been able to reconnect with some of our members and find out what you want us to do at NAMI DuPage. We have also been able to get out even more into the community and talk to professional group practices and other organizations to share what we are doing at NAMI DuPage.

Our Spring Benefit in April was the best we have ever had with wonderful supporters and a great evening of outreach and sharing as well as providing much needed funds for our programs.

As the fiscal year comes to an end, the board and staff are planning the next 3 – 5 years and want you to know that we have listened to the needs of our members. Late in May we held our first ―Donors Appreciation Brunch‖, where we shared some of the exciting ideas we have. (More on that later in this publication). You can be sure that NAMI DuPage is following in the footsteps of our founders. While we know that budget cuts from some of our providers are inevitable, we are not sitting around waiting for things to happen, but like our founders we will be proactive in serving our membership.

We thank all of our volunteers and generous donors, and we ask everyone to remember that NAMI DuPage is about people who care, people who understand, people who teach, people who listen, people who want to improve lives and people who want to fight mental illness and win. Visit our website at http://www.namidupage.org to learn more.

Thank you.