NSSC is a grassroots Coalition and, as such, cannot do this work without all of your help. Please consider volunteering to serve on one of our committees.

The following committees are looking for members to join them. Please only consider signing up for no more than 2 committees. You will soon become overwhelmed if you take on too much. Also, please know that, because we are working remotely with one another, we rely heavily on google drive, google docs, google sheets and google forms, along with gmail. You must have a gmail email address to serve on any of these committees.

1) Policy Action Committee - This committee is following the work of the ISMICC, congressional legislation pertaining to serious brain illnesses, and writing letters, position statements, etc... in order to be a voice for those with serious brain disorders (SBD), commonly referred to as the seriously mentally ill (SMI), and their families who suffer right along with them.

Currently, NSSC is looking for additional committee members. Are you a writer/editor passionate about seeing to it that legislation in support of changes to improve the lives of those affected by serious brain disorders? Then this committee is a perfect fit for your skillset.

What is the ISMICC? (From SAMHSA's website) "The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee (ISMICC) was established on March 15, 2017, in accordance with the 21st Century Cures Act (PL 114-255, Sec. 6031). The ISMICC is governed by the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) as amended (5 U.S.C. App.), which sets forth standards for the formation and use of advisory committees.

The ISMICC is composed of senior leaders from 10 federal agencies, including HHS, the Departments of Justice, Labor, Veterans Affairs, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and the Social Security Administration along with 14 non-federal public members.

The ISMICC reports to the Secretary of HHS or their designee. The Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use chairs the ISMICC, with management and support services provided by SAMHSA.

ISMICC delivers the following to Congress and to other relevant federal departments and agencies:

A summary of advances in serious mental illness (SMI) and serious emotional disturbance (SED) research pertaining to prevention, diagnosis, intervention, treatment, and recovery. This includes advances in access to services and supports for adults with SMI and children with SED.

An evaluation of the effect federal programs related to SMI have on public health, including public health outcomes such as:
Rates of suicide, suicide attempts, incidence and prevalence of SMIs, SEDs, and substance use disorders, overdose, overdose deaths, emergency hospitalizations, emergency room boarding, preventable emergency room visits, interaction with the criminal justice system, homelessness, and unemployment
Increased rates of employment and enrollment in educational and vocational programs
Quality of treatment services for mental and substance use disorders
Any other criteria as may be determined by the Secretary
Specific recommendations for actions that agencies can take to better coordinate the administration of mental health services for adults with SMI and children with SED"

2) Communications Committee - Take the lead on our coalition’s communication initiatives including media advocacy and social marketing efforts. This committee will oversee the development, implementation and evaluation of our communication/marketing plan.

Are you a current or retired journalist, marketing or media instructor, graphic design professional, public relations, marketing or advertising professional, newspaper advertising or editorial professional, student with interest in communications, photographer, freelance writer, or filmmaker? If so, our communications committee will be a perfect fit for your skillset. This committee is in need of co-chairs and members.

3) Blog Committee - This committee is responsible for creating material for NSSC's blog. Are you a writer/editor? Most of our blogpost material comes from members. The vast majority of the work done in this committee is editing members material. We also need someone who is tech savvy enough to actually publish each blogpost on our website. If you are simply interested in submitting a post for our blog, please email it to coordinator@nationalshatteringsilencecoalition.org. We are always looking for new material. This committee is in need of members and a co-chair.

4) Ad-hoc committee to build a library of short videos in member's own words describing their family’s story. These videos will be used by our coalition and Hope Street Coalition to educate the public about what it means to live this nightmare. Anyone who is willing to take on the responsibility of collecting members videos and publishing them to our website and social media along with sharing them with Hope Street Coalition would be a perfect fit for this committee. We would also need someone interested in drumming up ways to interest members and others to telling their stories via short videos. This committee needs a chair and members.

5) Steering Committee - The roles and responsibilities of the Steering Committee:
Acting in a leadership role on behalf of coalition membership at large;
Planning and participating in general membership meetings;
Developing and maintaining all components of the strategic plan (vision, mission, values, goals and strategies – or, logic model, action plan, measures of success) for the coalition;
Recruiting new members;
Approving final action by all coalition committees;
Assisting in orienting new steering committee members;
Attending regular meetings;  
Serving as a liaison between their organization, if they belong to an organization, and the coalition;
Identifying key issues and set broad direction and priorities;
Overseeing and participating in strategic plan implementation;
Identifying partnership opportunities;
Assisting with documenting and evaluating progress toward strategic goals;
Representing coalition interests and positions at public functions and public policy forums; and,
Oversee the work of the organization through the responsible delegation of funding and financial responsibilities if applicable, and operational /leadership functions.
Always assume good intentions on the part of all members of the coalition.
Responding to emails within 24 hours and actively participating in all activities of the steering committee.

The Steering Committee is in need of members.


Please check off committees you are interested in joining. Please understand that you must be able to commit to checking your email daily and to actively participating in the committees' work. We are constantly working on, editing, and voting on items we are working on and it holds everything up when we are unable to get a response from everyone.  

Also, if you do decide to volunteer to serve on one of our committees, please, if you don't already have one, create a Gmail email address to use on the committee and use that email address to apply for these positions because we work through google groups and have found that those who don't use a Gmail email address have problems receiving our emails and working on documents.  For instructions on how to use Gmail, google groups, and google drive, please see this document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Rw6JGf5B6QLPV3idRIJTetbCuGMrIS1xm_TiLuLZok/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you,
Jeanne Gore, NSSC Coordinator and Co-Chair, Steering Committee
coordinator@nationalshatteringsilencecoalition.org