In 1977, a Northern California mother named Eve decided she’d had enough.  Eve had raised a child diagnosed schizophrenic and had endured the prevailing thinking by the medical community and society at-large at the time; that her son’s condition was her fault.  That something in how she raised him caused his psychotic break with reality during his teens.  Trying to get appointments with the local mental health facility administrators was frustrating, and the results of meetings she could get just made her angry.   So on October 22^nd, Eve and another couple, Tony and Fran, met with seven other concerned families of mentally ill children and formed the California Association of Families of the Mentally Disabled (CAFMD).   But, they were just parents.  What could nine sets of parents really do?

She explained why she took this dramatic step to the World Congress on Psychiatry that same year.  Eve said, “We failed to understand why parents of a child with Leukemia were treated with sympathy and understanding, while parents of a child with schizophrenia were treated with scorn and condemnation.” 

CAFMD issued a press release the day they formed that stated their mission: “…a state-wide organization to provide strong advocacy and to influence legislation for provision of excellence in care and concern for the mentally ill.  An additional goal will be to educate the general public to the needs and distress of the mentally ill and their families.”  They agreed that the organization would be governed by families, and serve families – not doctors, educators, or politicians.  When the Governor promised funding for mental health services, but then failed to show up to a CAFMD meeting, they publicly held his feet to the fire.  They wrote, lobbied for, and helped pass a bill that required parents and mentally ill consumers have seats on the Citizens Advisory Council.  In just a single year, they pioneered the family-led advocacy and treatment model that all state organizations are transitioning to today.  “Just parents” did that.

 CAFMD continued to be an advocate for family support, family and patient advocacy, and fighting the stigma of mental illness.  Eventually, CAFMD became the California Alliance on Mental Illness (CAMI), and, beginning in 1979, its affiliate organizations stretched across the United States, umbrellaed as NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness.  Today, NAMI is in all 50 states, trains families to advocate for themselves and their loved ones, and is a supporter of BringChange2Mind.org, an organization which continues the fight to educate the public and end the stigma of mental illness for our children.   

 Eve Oliphant died on June 26, 2010, but her legacy lives on in us, gathered together here, to continue to fight for family-driven care for our children.  It lives on in every NAMIWalk around the country.  It lives on in the DSM-IV, in which schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are NOT listed as the result of overbearing mothers and weak-spirited fathers.  It lives on in me, every time I pick up the phone to call a parent in crisis, every time I drive to an IEP staffing, every time I write my congressman about the lack of enforcement of the Mental Health Parity Act.  We are just parents, grandparents, siblings and other family members of children with a mental illness.  But look what “just parents” can accomplish, when we stick together.

Read more about Eve Oliphant’s efforts to support and help us all:

CAMI History

Schizophrenia Through the Eyes of Families

When Medicine Got it Wrong – Eve Oliphant and Fran Hoffman