NAMI Northern Lakes will sponsor Family-to-Family, a program for families of people with serious mental illness. The series of 12 weekly classes begins Wednesday, Feb. 13, and will be held from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. The sessions will be held at Saint Mary’s Hospital in conference room 4.

The course will provide information about schizophrenia, the mood disorders (bipolar disorder and major depression), panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There will be ideas for coping with crisis and relapse; basic information about medications; listening skills; and ways for family members to care for themselves. The course was written by a mental health professional who is also a family member of someone with a mental illness.

The local presenters are Mary Wright of Rhinelander and Janice Schuette of Arbor Vitae, NAMI Northern Lakes volunteers who have taken intensive training as course instructors.

This course is designed for parents, siblings, spouses, teenage and adult children, and partners who are caregivers of people with severe and persistent mental illness. The course is not appropriate for individuals who themselves have a major mental illness.

NAMI Northern Lakes does sponsor support group meetings for those who are dealing with their own serious mental illness. Those meetings are held the second Saturday of each month in the community room of the Goodwill Store in Rhinelander.

Family-to-Family and all NAMI services are free. For information or to register, call Mary at (715) 362-8972 or Janice at (715) 614-4170, or email naminorthernlakes@yahoo.com.