Mother Bear: Families for Mental Health is a community of families dedicated to supporting each other through recovery education, family-led support communities, and access to recovery resources that enable all family members to thrive—emotionally, physically and socially.
With education and support, your whole family’s recovery is possible.
Families Healing Together online recovery education is designed to educate and support individuals, families and friends who are recovering from mental health challenges, trauma or psychiatric diagnoses such as schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar, anxiety and other disorders.
Our relationship-centered recovery approach helps families explore the mental health continuum and the recovery skills and attitudes that build bridges from dis-ease to hope, transformation and healing.
Course Title: Recovering Our Families
Next Session: July 16th – September 3rd, 2013 Duration: 8 weeks Facilitator: Krista MacKinnon Time Commitment: As little or as much as you can invest. To receive benefits from the course, a minimum of one hour per week is be required. Cost: $150 USD
Your payment guarantees your course registration.
“Recovering Our Families”
Our fully facilitated, interactive online
course is designed to support and educate
individuals and families about mental health,
emotional distress, psychoses, the impact of
psychiatric diagnoses, and families’ important role in recovery and wellness, including recognizing their own emotional needs.
Unique program features:
• Interactive, online learning
• Strengths-based focus
• Skill-building exercises
• Enhanced group support
• Family recovery coaching
• Flexible course delivery
• Media-rich resources
• Diversity of perspectives
Our classes are open to anyone working with emotional distress—individuals, families, friends and mental health care providers.
President Obama Speaks at the National Conference on Mental Health
President Obama delivers remarks to open the National Conference on Mental Health at the White House, part of the Administration’s effort to launch a national conversation to increase understanding and awareness about mental health.
Hope, Help and Hugs – Mother Bear: Families for Mental Health
by Kiesa Kay, WNC Woman, May, 2013
Most mothers mend whatever they can...
“As a parent, you want to fix the things that break. If the car breaks, you fix it. If the dishwasher breaks, you fix it. If a leg is broken, you fix it,” said Lisbeth Riis Cooper, chairwoman of Mother Bear: Families for Mental Health. “But when a family member experiences emotional or mental distress, how do you “fix” that? And is it fixable?”
Lisbeth founded Mother Bear: Families for Mental Health here in Western North Carolina to help families learn to find meaning and coping skills when a family member experiences mental health challenges. One in four adults, or about 57.7 million Americans, experience mental health challenge in any given year.
Nurturing Hope
Nonprofit tends to people suffering from a loved one’s emotional illness
by Austine Little, Verve Magazine Article, September 2012
Prolonged emotional distress can be devastatingly isolating for the sufferer, even when he or she is surrounded by friends and loved ones. And no matter how supportive they might be, those caught up in the vortex of chaos and despair often require just as much nurturing as the person they’re trying to help.
Mother Bear: Families for Mental Health, an outreach program and fund of the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care, believes that
“No family should face a mental-health challenge alone.”
The nonprofit takes a family-led approach to wellness, via education about the many paths to recovery and the incumbent resources, community discussions, and “Family Dens” — group meetings tailored to help those who live with and love the person in distress. Read More >>
Julie Huneycutt, Community and Development Director; Hendersonville artist Cindy Bock; and Jennifer Maurer, Managing Director of Mother Bear Community Action Network, with the “Hope Bear” in Hendersonville.
Mother Bear Post—Every month, we share news about our family recovery network’s education, support and recovery resources including where to find our Family Dens (local recovery groups) and how to start one in your community.
Subscribe to Mother Bear's Newsletter
Miss our last few newsletters? Not to worry, we have them archived for you to read:
May 2013:
—Family Hope Line
—In the News
—Online Family Recovery Class
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