Building Bridges: Mental Health Consumers and Members of Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Dialogue
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Recommendations for Improving
Relationships Between Consumers and Faith-Based and Community Organizations
Drawing on the factors identified,
participants developed a set of recommendations for improving relationships
between consumers and faith-based and community organizations. These recommendations
reflect the combined thinking of the participants, but not a consensus. The
group’s recommendations are presented below, organized by broad target
audience and then by major theme. The primary audiences for these recommendations
are SAMHSA and other HHS agencies, faith-based organizations, consumers and
consumer advocates, and other interested individuals and organizations. Some
recommendations appear in more than one category.
Recommendations to SAMHSA/CMHS
1. Provide education to faith-based
and community organizations.
a. Develop educational
curricula and programs to assist faithbased and community organizations in
learning about mental illnesses and co-occurring disorders. Suggested topics
include
i. What are mental illnesses
and psychiatric disabilities?
ii. Reducing or eliminating discrimination and stigma
iii. Recovery
iv. Importance of faith and spirituality in mental health recovery; need
for a “healing place”
v. Creating a supportive, welcoming environment
vi. Techniques for outreach (including assessment)
vii. Possibility of relapse and its implications for long-term relationships
between consumers and the faith community
viii. Cultural competence
ix. Grant-writing skills
x. Federal, State, and local mental health agencies and programs
xi. How to help consumers navigate the mental health system; how and when
to make referrals to appropriate supports
b. Facilitate ways for
faith-based organizations to consider their responsibility to assist people
with mental health issues in meeting their basic needs, such as housing, social
service and vocational supports, and other resources. Encourage clergy and
lay leaders of faith-based organizations, as part of their mission, to address
the needs of mental health consumers. Address the needs of clergy with mental
illnesses facing discrimination and stigma.
2. Enhance education for
health care and social service providers.
a. Develop an educational
program to assist health care, mental health care, and social services providers
in understanding the importance of faith and spirituality in recovery. Include
explicit guidelines and training on spirituality in recovery.
b. Include information for and about faith-based organizations in all SAMHSA
materials (for example, add a fact sheet to the CMHS Anti-Stigma Kit).
c. Work with schools of medicine, psychology, nursing, and social work to
add to their curricula a focus on a holistic approach to wellness that integrates
physical and mental health and the role of spirituality.
d. Sponsor development of
(1) instruments that
can assess a person’s spiritual history, interests, and mental health
needs;
(2) techniques to integrate that information into treatment planning; and
(3) competencies for mental health providers to address their clients’
spiritual needs.
3. Create ongoing dialogue
and foster partnerships between mental health agencies and faith-based communities.
a. Initiate communication
among SAMHSA and faith-based organizations, including clergy and lay representatives
of faithbased organizations serving on national advisory councils and consumer
subcommittees.
b. Encourage collaboration and interaction among the faith community, consumers,
family members, advocates, providers, community organizations, and government
agencies. Provide incentives to bring communities together to implement recommendations.
c. Sponsor regional
dialogues among health and mental health professionals, clergy and lay faith
community leaders, and consumers. Develop, publish, and disseminate guidance
for State and local entities to host similar dialogues.
d. Develop a video on how to forge partnerships between consumers and faith-based
and community organizations.
e. Encourage the development of links between public health agencies and faith-based
organizations. For example, some public health care agencies turn to local
congregations to contribute funds to pay for medications for people who cannot
afford them.
4. Encourage consumer involvement.
a. Encourage consumer
participation at all levels of planning, research, education, program development,
and policy.
b. Assist consumer groups in compiling reference manuals for the benefit of
clergy, schools, and other groups regarding mental health and social support
resources in their communities.
5. Promote best-practices
models.
a. Publish success stories
of persons with mental illnesses engaged in the life of faith communities.
b. Compile a list of best-practices models and resources and develop strategies
to share lessons learned.
c. Create a Web site and listserv to exchange information on successful faith-based
and consumer initiatives.
6. Provide Federal assistance,
monitoring, evaluation, and feedback.
a. Recommend that the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services establish a national advisory
council to enable faith-based and community organizations to inform policy
development.
b. Outline a strategy to determine incremental, achievable, and measurable
goals that can be implemented for system change related to the inclusion of
faith and spirituality in mental health service delivery.
c. Monitor Federal funding of the faith-based and community initiative to
ensure that organizations that provide mental health services have the opportunity
to apply for funding.
d. Monitor faith-based services to ensure that the quality of mental health
services and professionals are maintained and promoted.
e. Establish dissemination and communication strategies and feedback mechanisms
for activities related to the faith-based and community initiative.
7. Foster research.
a. Conduct research on
impediments to integration of persons with mental health issues into the faith
community. Investigate factors that inhibit and promote interaction.
b. Conduct research on the role of chaplains in the recovery process, perhaps
in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
c. Develop criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of faith-based mental health
programs.
d. Include grants for faith-based organizations in small communities.
Recommendations to Faith-Based
Organizations
1. Create a welcoming, supportive
environment for mental health consumers.
a. Learn how consumers
can request help from congregations and establish openness to these contacts.
b. Educate ushers, greeters, and other lay persons to welcome people with
mental illnesses.
c. Address the unique needs of individuals with mental illnesses.
d. Take a strengths-based approach that includes the expectation for recovery.
2. Introduce instruction
on mental health and mental illnesses as required topics in seminary education.
3. Use CMHS’s “Participatory
Dialogue” guide to organize dialogues in local communities.
4. Create partnerships between consumers and faith-based organizations for education.
a. Enable faith communities
to interact directly with consumers.
b. Teach faith-based organizations to reach out to consumers with mental health
issues, including determining who they are, how to contact them, and identifying
their needs.
c. Host forums on issues related to mental health and mental illness.
d. Invite consumers to share their stories to bring a face to recovery, to
explain the role that spirituality played to help them
recover, and to help clergy and chaplains understand how to support consumers
who want to look at their experiences in a spiritual context, as well as,
or instead of, an illness context.
e. Compile inspirational writings to stimulate communication about consumers’
journeys.
5. Develop curricula to
address and demythologize mental illness for adults and children suitable for
use and adaptation by faith-based organizations.
6. Develop a fact sheet on faith and spirituality in mental health.
7. Increase awareness and skills related to cultural competence.
a. Use nondiscriminatory,
nonstigmatizing language regarding mental health issues.
b. Accommodate the language and other needs of individuals from diverse cultures.
8. Address issues of discrimination
and stigma.
a. Avoid decision-making
based on stereotypes, stigma, and imagined worst-case scenarios regarding
persons with mental illnesses.
b. Mitigate discrimination and stigma in the thinking of both members and
clergy.
c. Deal openly, positively, and compassionately with clergy who have their
own mental health issues.
9. Educate mental health
providers about the role of chaplains in psychiatric hospitals as part of the
treatment team.
10. Provide support for the grieving process related to having a disability,
which includes mental illnesses.
11. Consider the social ramifications of mental illnesses and work to improve
conditions such as housing and employment.
12. Include consumers on committees and governing boards of faithbased organizations.
13. Provide transportation resources to enable consumers to participate in the
activities of faith communities.
Recommendations to Consumers
and Consumer Advocates
1. Develop a compendium
of best practices and lessons learned about engaging faith communities to
create supportive, welcoming environments for people with mental health issues.
2. Develop guidelines for faith-based organizations on factors involved in
creating a supportive, welcoming environment.
3. Educate consumers
and consumer groups on techniques to engage with faith-based organizations
and to create change.
4. Contribute to the development of curricula about the needs of persons with
mental health issues and faith-based programs.
5. Volunteer to share faith-based stories with congregations in order to put
a face on recovery and the role that spirituality plays in recovery; establish
local speakers bureaus of consumers willing to share their stories.
6. Present at consumer conferences on the role of spirituality in recovery
and how to create positive change in faith-based organizations so that they
welcome people with mental health issues.
7. Organize dialogues between faith-based organizations and mental health
consumers.
8. Volunteer in community efforts (for example, in homeless shelters) to demonstrate
the hope and reality of recovery—and to give back to the community.
9. Generate publicity for the positive role that faith communities play in
the recovery of persons with mental illnesses.
10. Create and disseminate templates for consumer letter-writing campaigns
to clergy and lay leaders of faith-based organizations.
11. Encourage consumer participation at all levels of planning, research,
education, program development, and policy.
12. Mobilize consumer groups to prepare reference manuals on mental health
and other social support resources in their communities for the benefit of
clergy, schools, and other groups.
13. Promote consumer participation on governing boards and committees of faith
communities.
These recommendations may
serve as a menu for agencies, organizations, and individuals who wish to adapt
the ideas for implementation in their own communities.
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