Jessica Quirk discovered NAMI MetroWest in 2017 when her daughter was suffering during an acute mental health episode. She took the family-to-family class and attended the caregiver support group with her husband.
She was trained to be a caregiver support group facilitator in the winter of 2019 and began facilitating in early 2019 with Larry DeAngelo. She very soon transitioned from facilitating in person to virtually through Zoom. In 2021, she recruited Patrick Murphy to be trained as a support group facilitator and they’ve co-facilitated the group one night per month together since then. She’s happy to be able to help people the way she has been helped since joining NAMI
Volunteer Of The Year
Patrick Murphy has been a volunteer facilitator for the NAMI MA MetroWest Family Support Group for almost two years. He finds the opportunity to pay it forward to help others who have a loved one with mental illness to be one bright spot of this journey we share.
Patrick lives in Plainville, MA and has an adult son who was diagnosed with an SMI three years ago. Patrick has also participated in the Orange County NY NAMI Family Support Group. He is a member of a NAMI family support spin-off group based in Oklahoma for families of loved ones with SMI’s.
Patrick is also a member of Massachusetts-based FFIMI (Family and Friends of Individuals with Mental Illness) and has become an active advocate for mental health legislation, providing written and oral testimony in support of a MA Senate-sponsored bill earlier this year.
Patrick also volunteers his singing and acting talents as a music ministry member at his church, in many virtual groups in Ireland, Canada, and the US and several local theatre groups in New England
