Background Statement
The National Alliance on Mental Illness was born in 1977, as people with serious mental illness were released from hospitals and returned to largely unprepared communities and families. Six years later, in 1983, Stella Colby and Julie Foster set up a NAMI affiliate — a financially independent 501c3 — in Colorado Springs.
It began as a group of parents of adult children who had formerly been institutionalized, meeting at kitchen tables to share resources and emotional support. They educated themselves and community members about mental illness, coped with the associated stigma, advocated for their loved ones, and sought more effective and accessible services.
In 1999, NAMI Colorado Springs adopted the Family-to-Family curriculum developed by NAMI national. In 2012, Lori Jarvis was hired as the first-ever paid executive director. Since then, staff and volunteers have broadened the organization’s reach to serve people who live with mental health conditions, as well as family members and the wider community. We have led or co-led six community-wide awareness initiatives and built a corps of 80-plus trained volunteers who teach classes and facilitate groups, educate the public at events, and provide information, connection and empathy to callers and drop-ins to our southeast Colorado Springs office.