Welcome to the home page of the National Coalition on Mental Health and Deaf Individuals (NCMHDI)! This website will enable you to review our Mission Statement, Goals, Officers/Board Members and Contacts.

The NCMHDI is a non-profit corporation established in 2008 to provide leadership and support in the areas of public mental health and deaf and hard of hearing populations in the United States. We are specifically committed to expanding the participation of consumers/survivors in all aspects of our work. In addition, the Coalition offers technical assistance to state mental health departments who are interested in developing or modifying mental health systems of care to provide their deaf and hard of hearing populations with culturally and linguistically appropriate care.

NCMHDI Mission

To create and modify public systems of care to adequately provide culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health and substance abuse services to humans with hearing loss. We carry out this mission through research, technical assistance, networking, advocacy, and education with extensive community and stakeholder input and participation.

NCMHDI Values

Shaping a world where deaf and hard of hearing people are respected, self-determining, and living well.

• Respected – NCMHDI honors the choices of people with hearing loss and their families.
• Self-determining – NCMHDI encourages each person to take control over his/her own life.
• Living Well – NCMHDI holds the expectation that all humans with hearing loss are entitled to the same rights that humans with hearing hold under our Constitution; the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

NCMHDI Goal Areas

• Access and Early Intervention.
• Advocacy/Empowerment
• Training and Workforce Development
• Service Continuum
• Policy Development and Leadership

NCMHDI Officers/Board Members

Resources

Promising and Emerging Approaches and Innovations for Crisis Interventions for People Who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deafblind (September 2016)

Being Seen!: Establishing Deaf to Deaf Peer Support Services and Training - Successes and Lessons Learned from the Massachusetts Experience (2015)

NASMHPD October 2018 Meet Me Call: Language Deprivation and Deaf Consumers: An Under Recognized Barrier to Effective Mental Health Services 

Blog: Language Deprivation and Deaf Mental Health; Introduction to a Webinar by Neil Glickman, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School (August 2018)

Additional Information

NASMHPD Deaf Mental Health Research Priority Consensus-Planning Conference

The NASMHPD Deaf Mental Health Research Priority Consensus-Planning Conference was held January 25-29, 2012 at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

Below are supplemental materials stemming from the outcome of the meeting:

• Conference Summary and Results (PDF, 48 KB)
• Thirty-Four Research Points
• Report on the 2008 Deaf Expert Meeting and a Framework for Action (PDF, 323 KB)
• Information Gaps on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Population: A Background Paper (PDF, 256 KB)