Why NAMI Montana?

Mental health care doesn’t fail because people don’t care.
It fails because systems are fragmented, underfunded, and hard to navigate—especially in rural states like Montana.

NAMI Montana exists to fix that.

For more than 35 years, NAMI Montana has worked to improve the lives of Montanans living with mental health conditions and their families through support, education, and advocacy. But our role goes beyond programs and awareness. We work to build a mental health system that actually functions—today and for the future.

We Focus on Access, Not Just Awareness

Access to care depends on more than good intentions. It depends on:

  • How services are funded

  • Whether providers can afford to offer care

  • Whether crisis services exist when people need them

  • Whether families can find the right level of treatment

NAMI Montana works at the policy, funding, and systems level to make sure mental health care is available, sustainable, and responsive across the state.

We Support People While Fixing the System

NAMI Montana delivers support and education programs across Montana—both in person and online—while also advocating for systemic change.

We believe these efforts belong together:

  • Families and peers need immediate support

  • Communities need stable local services

  • The state needs sustainable funding models

  • Policymakers need real-world insight from people with lived experience

Our work connects these pieces.

We Advocate for Those with the Most Complex Needs

NAMI Montana prioritizes people who are often the hardest to serve and the easiest to overlook, including:

  • Individuals with serious mental illness

  • People experiencing mental health crises

  • Youth at risk of suicide

  • People with treatment-resistant depression

  • Justice-involved individuals with mental health conditions

  • Veterans navigating trauma and brain health challenges

We work to ensure Montana’s system is built to support people when care is most critical.

We Stay Beyond the Bill Signing

Passing legislation is not the finish line.

NAMI Montana works closely with state agencies to help turn laws into functioning programs—shaping rules, reimbursement structures, and implementation details that determine whether policies succeed in practice.

This long-term approach has helped drive improvements in:

  • Mental health crisis care

  • Provider reimbursement

  • Youth suicide prevention

  • State hospital and forensic capacity

  • Behavioral health system planning

We Help People Find Care That’s Hard to Find

For over a decade, NAMI Montana has maintained internal resources to help families locate specialized and intensive behavioral health care—services that are often difficult to identify even for professionals.

This work led to Treatment Scout, now available as Treatment Scout GPT, which helps people explore options such as:

  • Inpatient mental health and addiction care

  • Intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programs

  • Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and ECT

  • Specialized services for veterans, youth, and complex conditions

We Champion Sustainable, Modern Funding Models

Mental health systems cannot survive on outdated payment structures.

NAMI Montana has been a leading advocate for modern financing approaches, including:

  • Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers (CCBHCs)

  • Value-based and outcomes-focused care

  • Stable funding for crisis services and community care

These models make it possible to support peer specialists, care coordinators, crisis teams, and integrated services—roles that are essential to recovery.

We Translate Research Into Real-World Impact

NAMI Montana works at the intersection of research, policy, and practice. We track emerging evidence in areas such as:

  • Youth Suicide prevention

  • First-episode psychosis

  • Treatment-resistant depression

  • Precision brain health

  • Veterans mental health

Our goal is not just to share research—but to help ensure it informs real changes in care delivery and access.

Why It Matters

Mental health systems don’t improve on their own.
They improve because people are willing to do the hard, sustained work of building them.

When you support NAMI Montana, you are helping:

  • Families navigate care

  • Communities sustain services

  • Providers keep their doors open

  • Policymakers make informed decisions

  • Montana build a mental health system that works when people need it most

That’s “Why NAMI Montana?”