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Editor's note: This is the first in a series on mental health that will appear on the Saturday-Sunday Life section covers in May.
From its very humble origins 45 years ago, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has blossomed into the nation's leading voice on mental health.
It started as a small group of families that gathered around a kitchen table in 1979 with a common concern -- to seek help for themselves or their loved ones who were impacted by mental illness.
Today, NAMI has grown into a nationwide alliance that encompasses more than 600 affiliates throughout the United States. The chief function of NAMI in each community is to raise awareness, reduce stigma, promote advocacy, assist in recovery and provide support and education for those affected by mental illness.
The NAMI Blair County affiliate began its efforts in 1995 and its office is currently headquartered at 711 Ninth Ave., Suite 2,
Altoona, in the Hope Drop-In Center building.
This year, the NAMI Blair County organization will be the focus of the Mirror's annual four-part series on mental health that has been written each May in conjunction with National Mental Health Awareness Month.
Aimee Burns, a Philadelphia native who has over 30 years of work experience in the mental health field, has been the executive director of the NAMI Blair County affiliate since 2021.
"Some of the most critical functions of our organization are to be a resource for the community, and to help people in the community to get connected to services that they need,'' Burns said. "Our organization also provides support groups and education about mental health for family members and friends of those who suffer from mental illness, and our organization teaches people who are impacted by mental-health issues and concerns about how to advocate for themselves with their health care providers and other important groups and individuals.''
Burns said that she and a recently-hired part-time coordinator are currently the NAMI Blair County organization's only paid workers, but she also pointed out that she has plenty of volunteer help to run the organization's various courses and groups, and to handle incoming emails.
Burns was hired as the NAMI Blair County office's executive director in 2021, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
"I came in here during COVID, so everything was still on lockdown and people were still not doing things except (online) on Zoom,'' Burns said. "It was quite difficult because we are a small nonprofit and there wasn't a whole lot happening with our organization because people didn't want to get together for support groups, and trying to provide education to the public on Zoom was more difficult than we had originally anticipated, because a lot of people got burned out on video calls.''
The onset of the pandemic caused mental health problems to skyrocket among people both locally and nationally.
"Pre-COVID, the statistic was that one in five Americans had a mental health diagnosis,'' Burns said. "Post-COVID, that number has increased to one in four Americans with a mental health diagnosis.
"There are a lot of people who are now having what can be called post-traumatic stress from COVID because the isolation (that the pandemic imposed on the world) has caused people to develop anxiety about being around other people now,'' Burns added. "There are some people who may have developed agoraphobia -- which means that people don't want to leave their houses because they are afraid to do so.''
The NAMI Blair County organization has weathered the initial COVID-19 storm admirably, however.
"When I first came in here, this particular Blair County office had very little going on, and a membership of only 11 people,'' said Burns, who pointed out that the NAMI Blair County's nominal membership fee of only $5 allows members to get online resources that nonmembers cannot access, along with helping to fund the continued growth and progress of the organization itself.
"Now we have a membership of 91 people, and we have support groups running regularly throughout the year, and education courses running quarterly,'' Burns added.
Those various groups and courses that are offered under the NAMI Blair County organization's umbrella will be examined in this month's Mirror series over the next three weekends.
In the Mirror's May 11-12 weekend edition, the second article in this series will examine family support groups that are offered by the NAMI Blair County organization. The following weekend, May 18-19, the third article in the series will focus on the peer support groups that are offered by the organization, and the series will conclude in the May 25-26 edition, with a focus on the organization's youth education efforts.
Next: A look at the NAMI Blair County organization's family support groups.