CSS Seminar: Religion & Public Mental Health Collaboration: Map & Quantify with Systems Science?Wed, Jul 6, 2022 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM BST

Registration

Gerald Midgely says:

Glen Milstein (City University of New York, USA) is visiting our Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, UK. He is giving a seminar on PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH COLLABORATIONS WITH FAITH GROUPS TO PROMOTE COMMUNITY CONNECTION. It will start at 1pm (UK time), Wednesday 6 July 2022.

It’s a hybrid event, and you can join online. Please sign up at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/regi…/6672144844397815565

Here is Glen’s summary of what the seminar is about:

Rates of mental illness and suicide have been on the rise, and this looks like it will continue. One consensus that has emerged in public mental health is that clinical interventions are necessary, but they are insufficient. From a prevention perspective, there is a need to better promote wellbeing through an improved knowledge of how to create and sustain people’s feelings of belonging and connectedness. A sense of community connection can help to promote reintegration and sustain recovery after treatment. How do we target community connection?

Since 1992, we have been researching programs of Community Outreach & Professional Engagement (COPE) to improve public mental health through collaborations between clinical service providers and religious communities/infrastructures. Since 2006 (when the ‘American Journal of Public Health’ published a special issue on systems thinking), we have worked to map this de facto and collaborative system of care.

The model for this work, with a psychological foundation in lifespan development, has changed over time from a Prevention Science U-S-I-R taxonomy to its current Dynamic Complexity map of stocks and flows relating to categories of wellbeing, support and care. Currently, we are engaged with community clergy from a veteran-serving clinic in Alabama, and a comprehensive community mental health program in Pennsylvania. We have also worked with the US Military, and on college campuses to promote collaboration between chaplains and mental health counsellors.

We look forward to seeing you at the seminar.