Workship
Session I Friday, September
30, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
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1.
Responding to Serious Mental Health
Issues across the Life Span
Families in our congregations face
emotional and behavioral issues with
children, experience trauma, bring to us
the challenges of adolescents and young
adults struggling with mental illness,
drugs and alcohol, and turn to the church
with the needs of aging parents. Learn how
clergy and laity working together in
mental health ministry can help people
find community resources, maximize healing
and recovery, and develop a faith adequate
to serious mental health issues. Craig
Rennebohm
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2.
Theological Underpinning of Disability
Ministry
How do we find strength in our
vulnerability? Some Biblical references to
disability and their interpretations
through the years have been very
discouraging to people with disabilities.
This workshop will explore theological
concepts that celebrate the diversity of
creation(including people with atypical
bodies and minds), highlight the
giftedness of each person, discuss the
importance of community, look at healing
and wholeness in some new life-giving
ways, and challenge those of us on the
margins to use our vantage point to
critique the status quo. Carolyn
Thompson and Peggy Wolfe Dunn
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3.
Transformative Experiences: The
Redeeming Nature of Brain Disorders
Brain disorders can be traumatic,
however there are many who use these
experiences to develop or enhance their
relationship with God. Join in this
provocative discussion that will challenge
the conventional wisdom that mental
illness is full of despair, hopelessness,
and is devoid of any spiritual
center. Karl Shallowhorn and Faith
McCausland
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4.
Where is God amidst disability and
mental illness?
This workshop will address questions asked
by many about whether God 'causes'
disability and/or mental illness and how
we might more supportively think about
God's presence in the lives of people with
challenges that often involve suffering
from bodily pain, emotion duress, and
communal exclusion. Tom Reynolds
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5.
Coming out to your Congregation: Clergy
and Laity Living with Mental
Illness/Brain Disorder or Disability
How do you talk to your
congregation about your disability or
mental illness/brain disorder, or that of
a family member? In this workshop, clergy,
seminarians, and church leaders share
their personal experiences and invite you
into the discussion. (Including
stories of what congregations are doing.)
CJ
Siroky, Marie Siroky, Mary Alice Suter,
Kelli Parrish Lucas.
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6.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) And Our
Churches
This presentation will address how
Traumatic Brain Injury is experienced in
the greater population, with emphasis upon
the combat trauma population. We will also
look at how TBI presents with other Mental
Health conditions i.e. depression,
substance abuse and specific interventions
and resources available for those who
suffer from TBI and their families.
Peter
Bauer and Kevin Pettit.
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| Workshop
Session II Friday, September 30,
3:00 - 4:30 pm |
1.
Organizing a Mental Health Ministry Team
in the Local Congregation
Clergy are often the first
responders to a mental health crisis. A
lay team can be of great assistance in
helping do education in the congregation,
provide welcome, offer spiritual support,
give service and engage in advocacy.
Churches opening their doors in mental
health ministry are growing congregations.
Learn how to gather a knowledgeable mental
health team, drawing on individuals in
your community who have life experience
and training in children’s mental health,
trauma, addictions, serious mental illness
and aging. Participants will receive the
Pathways to Promise Mental Health Ministry
Toolkit. Craig Rennebohm
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2.
Becoming Accessible to All (A2A). Outlining
a process for forming inclusion teams in
Conferences and congregations to move the
important work of accessibility forward.
How are ONA and A2A linked? Can these two
commitments to full inclusion be mutually
enhanced in our congregations? If you are
already engaged in this work, please come
to share your successes and struggles and
continuing needs. If you are not yet
engaged in this work but want to be, come
to be informed and challenged in an
interactive setting. Peggy Wolfe
Dunn
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3. Living
with Disabilities
Participants are invited to embrace
the call to tell the stories about
individuals and families living with
disability - stories that move hearts and
motivate churches to take concrete steps
toward becoming the kinds of communities
Christ invites us to become. Christine
Guth and Brett Webb-Mitchell
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4.
Current and Future Interventions for
returning Veterans and Their Families
Suffering from PSTD
This workshop will address current
and future interventions for the treatment
of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,
interventions and resources available for
those who suffer from PTSD and their
families, how churches might be able to
reach out and support those who suffer
from PTSD and their families. Peter Bauer
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5. The
Neuropsychology of Autism Spectrum
Disorders
What exactly is Autism? What is Asperger's
Disorder? What is Pervasive Developmental
Disorder? Are these merely different
labels for the same disorder with slight
variations in the presentation? This
workshop will discuss these disorders from
recent theoretical perspectives including
information on several treatment
methods. Kim Johnson
|
6.
Incarceration and Mental Illness
Your mentally ill
child/congregant/neighbor is now
incarcerated. What to expect now? At
any given moment, half of the country's
mentally ill are in jail or prison.
Will you be able to continue to "widen the
welcome" to include those who are
arrested? Are you willing to extend
the welcome to those who have "done
time?" This workshop will
prepare you to understand the workings (
and differences between ) jails and
prisons, prepare you to make visits to
parishioners who are incarcerated, and to
think through how you might decide to
support the return to community of anyone
who has been recently released. Ken Gilbert.
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| Workshop
Session III Saturday, October 1,
10:30 am - 12:00 pm |
1.
Companionship Training: One to One
Support for Healing and Recovery
Serious mental health issues often
isolate individual and their families. We
can share the journey with the practices
of companionship – offering hospitality,
being a neighbor, using a side by side
approach, listening and supporting a
person in taking next steps in their
healing and recovery. Learn how to become
a Sunday morning companion, a once a week
congregational companion, or a community
companion in meal programs, a shelter,
mental health center or supported housing
in your neighborhood. Craig
Rennebohm.
|
2.
Navigating the Murky Waters of
Disability and Drug and Alcohol
Dependency
How do families (nuclear and
church) safely navigate when disability
and drug and alcohol dependency flow
together? More often than we might like,
life presents us with co-occurring
challenges, made more complex by the love
which ties us together. How can we be
helpful to those we love in family or
church community, respectful of ourselves
and others at the same time? In this
participatory workshop we will present a
framework for exploring our experiences
with these complicated and delicate
situations. Ken Gilbert and Peggy Wolfe
Dunn.
|
3. The
Neuropsychology of Autism Spectrum
Disorders
What exactly is Autism? What is
Asperger's Disorder? What is Pervasive
Developmental Disorder? Are these merely
different labels for the same disorder
with slight variations in the
presentation? This workshop will discuss
these disorders from recent theoretical
perspectives including information on
several treatment methods. Kim Johnson
|
4. The
ADA regulations & standards: What we
can learn about spiritual community from
secular laws
This past year has brought
significant changes to the ADA regulations
in employment, public accommodations and
architectural standards. While most church
activities fall outside the regulations
there is much we can learn from the
process. They inform our understanding of
access to the community and set individual
expectations for access. A short
presentation will provide a context for a
discussion of common barriers and
effective solutions with an emphasis on
questions and answers. Scott
Lissner
|
5.
Transformative Experiences: The
Redeeming Nature of Brain Disorders
Brain disorders can be traumatic,
however there are many who use these
experiences to develop or enhance their
relationship with God. Join in this
provocative discussion that will challenge
the conventional wisdom that mental
illness is full of despair, hopelessness,
and is devoid of any spiritual
center. Karl Shallowhorn and Faith
McCausland.
|
6.
Coming out to your Congregation: Clergy
and Laity Living with Mental
Illness/Brain Disorder or Disability
How do you talk to your
congregation about your disability or
mental illness/brain disorder, or that of
a family member? In this workshop, clergy,
seminarians, and church leaders share
their personal experiences and invite you
into the discussion. (Including
stories of what congregations are doing.)
CJ
Siroky, Marie Siroky, Mary Alice Suter,
Kelli Parrish Lucas.
|
