The Faith in Mental Health initiative is taking its project to the next level when it kicks off a free year-long program on Monday, Sept. 21 that is open to churches in Vance and Granville counties.
Karl Johnson, program coordinator with Granville Vance Public Health, said there’s still time to register to participate. The meeting will take place at the Salvation Army, 2292 Ross Mill Rd. in Henderson.
Find a registration link at www.gvph.org.
In the couple of years since its inception, the Faith in Mental Health program has held community forums, formed an advisory board and has provided trainings for more than 100 people.
The Sept. 21 event puts in motion another layer of the initiative designed for churches and the role they play in the community.
The term “cohort” may sound a bit formal and structured, but Johnson said there will be plenty of room for flexibility as the program moves forward.
Having conversations about substance abuse disorders and other mental health issues isn’t always easy, Johnson said on Tuesday’s TownTalk.
Being part of the Faith in Mental Health cohort provides a nice mix of structure with open-ended flexibility depending on a particular church’s wants and needs – a way to have conversations in the context of a faith community.
The hope is that churches will pursue different activities, whether it’s forming a support group at church, creating a mental health library or having a special bible study on relevant topics.
The project aims to lessen the stigma that surrounds mental health, substance abuse and addiction.
“Stigma is a huge barrier that’s come up again and again in the different community health assessments that we’ve conducted at the health department,” Johnson said. The Faith in Mental Health initiative seeks to view an individual’s struggles through the lens of faith, whether it’s through particular spiritual practices, spiritual passages of scripture or theological voices to better understand how to care for someone caught in the web of mental health or addiction challenges.
“For all the topics that we’ll address in the next year,” Johnson said, “we’re trying to center them with people’s concrete lived experiences.”
Hearing from people who speak openly about their struggles with mental health and addiction is a helpful way to learn how they sought and received the care they needed.
“Hopefully it humanizes this topic can be so hard,” Johnson said. It also demonstrates to those who are currently struggling that there are people in our own communities who have faced the same challenges and have overcome them.
“That’s life,” Johnson said. “And we are called to come around people who are struggling to support them where they’re at.”
Visit https://gvph.org/ to learn more, email Karl Johnson at kjohnson@gvph.org or call him at 616-298-5626.
Learn more about the program at https://gvph.org/faith-in-mental-health
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