The following is a list of the current projects we are looking for volunteer help on. These projects are things that people have been asking for and if you can see one that is both of interest to you and which you can use, we'd love it if you would join us in getting it accomplished. This web site is an entirely volunteer organization with the help of a few poorly-paid summer interns who are psychiatry students at US colleges. What this web site becomes is entirely dependent upon us - the more we put into it, the more we can each get out of it. Basically the projects we are working on are things that many families and individuals have to do anyway (or are interested in) - so why not get the detailed information up here once from soneone who has gone through the process (of getting SSI benefits, for example) so that we can all learn from their experience and not have to duplicate the hassles they have gone through.
These projects are designed to be worked on over the period of about a month, with a time commitment of from as little as an hour a week, to as much as you like. It is hoped that we can get a small team of people (from 2 to 5 people) to work on each project at the same time. We are setting up what is called an email discussion group/Listserv around each of the projects so that you can get to meet some other people, make friends, share ideas and learn something while you are helping people. We are open to suggestions on how to improve all our efforts here, and hope that you'll join in.
Search out new information for subject areas that we focus on. Gather information and links that are on the Internet, as well as material not on the Internet. Help us quickly enhance each of the key areas of the web site so that we always have the most recent information on the new medications, treatments, etc.
Because people with Schizophrenia are very sensitive to stress they frequently cannot participate in regular college courses. Internet-based education takes the stress out of college and non-college courses to allow people to participate at home in a lower stress environment at their own pace. Help us build up a listing of the organizations that offer these courses and note the various degrees that they will confer over the Internet and in what subjects.
Because people with Schizophrenia are very sensitive to stress they frequently cannot participate in regular work opportunities. Internet-based work takes the stress out of the experience and may to allow people to participate in work opportunities at home in a lower stress environment. Help us build up a listing of these type of work opportunities and success stories by those who are working.
There are at least a couple of books printed every month on the topic of schizophrenia. Psychiatrists, researchers, family members and people suffering from schizophrenia need to know about these new books, and we'd also like to let the publishers and authors know about our web site so that we get mentioned in their books. We need a few people (at least one of which is based in New York with experience in the publishing industry due to the focus of publishing there) to contact publishers as representatives of this web site, to get review copies of the new books (get put on a list of their advance reviewer's list), and if the book is a good one - invite the author in for a virtual discussion on his or her book for people to talk directly with the authors.
A frequent need for people with schizophrenia is to get some sort of social security benefits. This can be a very difficult process because the person that has schizophrenia may not understand they have the illness, or may go through periods when they cannot handle their finances, etc. Our goal here is to develop a resource area with tips from people who have successfully gotten Social Security - with advice on how to handle different problems that might come up. Our goal is to have links to all the forms that are required in either Canada or the US.
Studies show that upwards of 50% of people with schizophrenia have significant problems understanding that they have schizophrenia because the part of the brain that is affected is the part that has to do with rational decision making. This resource area will include advice and tips from people that have gotten treatment for people when a person has not initially thought that they needed help.
A lot of the needs and issues that individuals and families have in dealing with schizophrenia are common to the thousands of other people fighting this illness, but a lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about these needs and problems even anonymously over the Internet. Discussion area volunteers are needed to focus on one area and help draw people into conversations on given subjects so that we can get more ideas on how to address the common issues that are faced. In other words, we need people to throw out topics so that there are always a few things to talk about. You can draw on your own experiences, prompt others to share theirs, or simply ask general questions to get responses.
There are a lot of people out there that know a lot about all aspects of schizophrenia - book authors, researchers, consumers, etc. that we'd like to invite to our site for discussions. We need someone to work with the people that find out about the new books on schizophrenia, and new published research, and invite them to our discussion areas to respond to questions. The co-ordinator of these events will contribute significantly in keeping us up to date on the latest developments and news in schizohprenia and also meet a lot of interesting people. Ideally we'd have a different speaker or discussion person every two weeks.
Currently there is very little information about schizophrenia available on the Internet in languages other than English. We would like to provide some of the best information from the articles and news in other languages such as French and Spanish. We are looking for people who are fluent in other languages to help translate some of the articles and help the many people that don't speak English.
As part of our efforts to get informed of the new books that are published on an on-going basis about developments in schizophrenia we are contacting publishers and getting on their lists of organizations to send books to. At the same time we need people to read these new books and provide reviews of the books for our newsletter readers. If you are interested, please drop us an email and let us know what type of books on schizophrenia/mental illness you are interested in reviewing. You may even get a free book out of the deal!
Www.schizophrenia.com will be providing a free biweekly science email newsletter containing schizophrenia research abstract briefs covering the most recent issues of 35 journals compiled by a team of volunteer researchers. These abstracts will be cataloged on site and will be searchable in the near future. For more information, go to www.schizophrenia.com/resdigest/help.html.
We need to let the researchers in schizophrenia know about this new schizophrenia research digest - so this person will contact (via email) all the people that might be interested in this free service and let them know about it. We'll have a list of the research centers and Universities that you'll be able to work through. This will help "get the word out" about this great new, free service.
We have gotten approval by Joyce Burland, developer of the Journey of Hope program, to offer over the Internet this class that helps family members copy with mental illness. We are actively looking for two types of volunteers:
1. Experienced Journey of Hope Trainers - people that have taught the Journey of Hope class already and would be interested in leading a class over the Internet. The advantage of doing it over the Internet is that you can lead the class directly from your home computer, and all the class materials are already on the computer and automatically get sent toeveryone during each class - so its much easier and requires less advance preparation.
2. We are interested in growing the number of Journey of Hope trainers - so if you have taken the course and might be interested in teaching a course over the Internet please let us know.
This job is similar to the email promotions manager. Here, we want people to know about the discussions and to help out. We are interested in having authors and/or researchers spend a few hours answering questions so that we can have various experts on the site approximately twice monthly. Also, this involves making sure that Yahoo has a listing for the special events in their online events of the day section so that people can find what we have to offer.
We need some people to help with writing the newsletter. This means scanning various news organizations and press release organizations for relevant information and sending the articles to whomever is in charge of editing the newsletter for that time. Since many of the sources of our articles are copyrighted, we need people to summarize and put into their own words many of these stories so that we can legally publish them. By helping in this effort, we will be able to cover the world of schizophrenia news more copiusly and will make it easier to publish the newsletter that is such a central part of the site.
There are numerous diseases that are often correlated with schizophrenia. Bipolar Disorder, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia are just some of them. What we'd like is for someone interested in one of those other diseases to keep tabs on that disease and in particular note if there is any news concerning the treatment of that disease. This way, we can help people probe their doctors and get the best treatment in related disorders which can help with the treatment of their schizophrenia. This was we also can alert people that they may have more than just schizophrenia and can seek help with their associated disease.
This job involves compiling all the collected articles from the Reporters and formatting them into the newsletters in the way you've received them. This may also involve answering some of the mail that is generated after a newsletter is sent out. You do not need to know the answers to such questions, but you should be able to give an idea of where to look for an answer (doctor, library, etc.)
We need people who have experienced a child developing schizophrenia to help get the word out to parents that though the most common time for developing the disease in college age, it can be developed in rare occurences at much younger ages. Many people think that their child is simply acting "strange" and that nothing is wrong, when perhaps their child is suffering from major mental illness. Since prompt treatment is the best and most effective, we want parents to be aware that this disease can strike at a young age as well.