Glen Milstein

Implementation of a Program to Improve the Continuity of Mental Health Care Through Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement (C.O.P.E.)

There are over 260,000 religious congregations in the United States. They and their clergy are de facto providers of mental health care. Recent models promoting collaboration between clergy and psychologists advocate that shared religious values underlie effective working relationships. This view may impede collaboration with the majority of psychologists, who are not religious, excluding congregants from needed expertise. The Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement (C.O.P.E.) model was developed and implemented to facilitate continuity of care across a diversity of caregivers. Handouts based on National Institute of Mental Health prevention science categories and case examples illustrate when and how clergy and clinicians would collaborate. The authors introduce and define the term burden reduction to describe a C.O.P.E. outcome. They consider this clinical work religion inclusive rather than faith based.

Consumers, clergy, and clinicians in collaboration: Ongoing implementation and evaluation of a mental wellness program

ABSTRACT As a foundation of most cultures, with roots in persons’ early development, religion can be a source of hope as well as denigration. Some religious institutions have made attempts to help persons with mental health problems, and some mental health professionals have sought to engage religion resources. These programs have rarely been sustained. In 2008, the Mental Health Center of Denver (MHCD) developed a program to assess the utility of religion resources within mental health care. In response to positive feedback, MHCD appointed a director of Faith and Spiritual Wellness who facilitates community outreach to faith communities and spiritual integration training to MHCD staff. This director initiated a Clergy Outreach & Professional Engagement (COPE) conference for consumers, clergy, and clinicians. The goal was to acknowledge borders between parts of persons’ lives, and to build bridges of collaboration to facilitate care. Participants described lived examples of collaboration to improve mental wellness, including the need for a “solid welcome” from congregations. Subsequent, online surveys generated quantitative data on the usefulness of the conference to encourage and to generate ideas for interaction. Each group affirmed the utility of the conference; consumers and clinicians found the conference more useful than clergy. Qualitative assessment confirmed that across culture differences, participants found common language to demonstrate that persons of different traditions can provide care inclusive of religious resources. This assessment concludes with recommendations for future collaboration, led by consumer input, to expand recovery networks.

The Link Between Religion and Health: Psychoneuroimmunology and the Faith Factor

The distinguished list of contributors examine a series of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) topics that relate to religious faith and behavior. PNI studies the relationships between mental states and the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Among the issues it focuses upon are how mental states, in general, and belief states, in particular, affect physical health. The contributors argue that religious involvement and belief can affect certain neuroendocrine and immune mechanisms, and that these mechanisms, in turn, positively affect a wide variety of health outcomes, such as susceptibility to cancer and recovery following surgery. This volume is essential reading for those interested in the relationship between religion and health.