Hmmm. I respectfully disagree that the Mental Health First Aid course facilitated by NAMI is damaging. I have read your links and come away with confusion as to why you feel that educating the general public on: " Learn basic first aid skills needed to help a person who is experiencing a mental health problem or crisis. Learn about common mental illnesses and co-occurring disorders. Understanding and recognizing the signs that someone needs help, is the first step in getting that person appropriate care and treatment. " is damaging. In fact, many experts who I respect and admire disagree( and side note, they are not getting payouts from big pharma, which seems to be alluded to often in a few of the links).
Disagreeing with the words mental health or mental illness and the labeling is another issue. Having worked in government agencies where having a listed diagnosis allows us to fund services for a client, it is something I have tried to embrace rather than fight against. If I don't call it chemical dependency, it does not make it less so anymore than if I don't call my hypothyroidism by it's given diagnosis. Having a name or a label for it gives me more options to research and treat it. Again, just my opinion and how I have wrapped my brain sideways to embrace diagnosis/words/labels. I, myself, proudly wear many, many labels.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. But blasting accredited programs based on our own opinions on a "professional" site such as this, seems wrong somehow.
Just my opinion.