Mental Health Resources

Community in Crisis

Grief

Supporting healthy grieving is an essential element of any faith community’s life together.

Working Through Grief: A Self-Care Handbook 
Gives readers a clear understanding of the grieving process, validates the emotions they’re experiencing, and dispels common myths about grief. Interactive exercises help readers cope effectivly with grief and include: Keeping a journal of thoughts and emotions, tracking and maintaining their health, handling legal and financial matters, developing a plan for healing. Available in Spanish.

Helping Your Child Work Through Grief: A Parent’s Handbook
Sensitive guide explains the different ways in which children ages 6-12 perceive and handle grief at various stages of development. Hands-on features include: pages for parents to record and evaluate their own views about death and grieving, exercises parents and children can share, such as assembling a scrapbook, creating a collage, writing about the deceased loved one, and more. Fill-in sections, work sheets and other interactive features make handbooks ideal for ongoing reference. Available in Spanish.

Other books / resources:

With Sighs Too Deep For Words: Grace and Depression, A. Robert Hirschfeld.

Grace is A Pre-Existing Condition: Faith, Systems, and Mental Healthcare, David Finnegan-Hosey

Post-Traumatic God: How the Church Cares for People Who Have Been to Hell and Back, David W. Peters

Tracks of a Fellow Struggler: Living and Growing through Grief,  John R. Claypool

Suicide

September is National Suicide Prevention Month.

Everyone is affected by suicide, not just the victim. Suicide impacts family and friends long after the loss of a loved one. On average, one person commits suidide every 16.2 minutes. two-thirds of the people who commit suicide suffer from depression.

Suicidepreventionlifeline.org 1-800-273-TALK(8255)

One way to help prevent suicide is to increase access to treatment for depression. Howerver, identifying depression can be difficult. Not all people who suffer from depression show signs. The first step in identifying someone who is suffering from depression and contemplating suicide is to see how serious the issue is. Talking to the person involved and asking about their thoughts will decrease the trigger of suicidal action. Suggesting a counselor or treatment for depression might also help. Often, people who ae depressd need a carring friend. A common fallacy is that people who talk about suicide never act on it. If a friend or loved one is talking about suicide, it’s time to get help for that person. The mental health of yourself or a loved one can never be taken too seriously.