Wespath is offering first aid training for mental health beginning in March. This training is open to everyone associated with the UMC—clergy and their spouses, Church leaders, staff, and congregation members—at no cost.
First Aid for Mental Health erases the stigma surrounding mental health and emphasizes that it’s OK not to be OK. It also teaches attendees how to accept their own mental health struggles without embarrassment or shame. We hope this training will be a step toward improving the UMC’s culture of support for those struggling with mental health concerns.”
Wespath offers us a wonderful and needed opportunity in “First aid training for mental health.” The Covid pandemic, the racism pandemic, the deep polarization being experienced in this world and in our communities and churches on a number of fronts is causing a collective and community experience of trauma like never before.
This trauma is greatly impacting our mental health. This is something that deserves our utmost attention. The state of our mental health impacts our individual physical health, spiritual health, and how we behave or respond to both joys and sorrows as they come our way.
Mental health and the ongoing care and attention to our mental health impacts our ability to live in health ways, lead people to Christ, and to share the hope filled Good News of Jesus Christ effectively.
I highly encourage every spiritual leader, both clergy and lay, to register and engage with this timely and needed first aid training for mental health so that we all might work together to be a healthy body of Christ for the traumatised world today and into the future.
Sandra Steiner Ball
Resident Bishop West Virginia Conference
I believe the “First Aid for Mental Health” events offered by Wespath will help to bring awareness and understanding to our own mental health needs, those with whom we are in ministry together, and those with whom we are called to be reaching. It is my hope that laity from all over the Conference will attend these events, so we can learn and grow together to enhance our abilities to meet the needs of our pastors, our fellow ministry leaders, and our communities. We can each take an active role in supporting our own mental health and the mental health of those around us, and these courses will provide us tools and resources to be better equipped to understand these needs without stigma and/or judgement.
Jamion Wolford, Director of Administrative Services
To learn more and to register for the March 10 and 24 sessions, click here.
Download a flyer to share in your local congregation here.