The Faith and Health Perspective, May 2022
Mental Health and Wellness 
Rev. Jessica Stokes 

Happy Mental Health Month! Our emotional well-being and our mental health are beautiful, complex, and vital components of our health. It is through our mental health that we are able to enrich our experiences, learn, process difficult seasons, pray and meditate, listen, trust others, be vulnerable, and more. Our mental health impacts our spiritual lives, families, marriages, relationships, jobs, and countless other areas. Every day, we experience our mental health. There is so much to celebrate about mental health and the opportunities that we all have to eliminate stigma and provide hope to all through healthy mental health practices. We can better support one another through mental health ministries thanks to efforts around trauma-informed ministries, suicide prevention, normalizing therapy, proper referrals, and more. Our faith communities can be places of hope, refuge, and support for those living with all types of concerns! Join PHW in this sacred work.

Finding the Sun Again After the Rain ~ Older Adults and Mental Health
Krista Westervelt

“Into each life some rain must fall,” Ella Fitzgerald sang, “But too much is falling in mine.” We all know that life comes with sunshine and with rain, but what happens when the rain is too much? When it feels like the storms are prevailing?


There is a common misconception that getting older means that the showers will always outnumber the sunny days–that any sadness or anxiety we might have is to be expected. Not so! If you or someone you love is experiencing a season of stormy weather, there are services and supports to restore hope in seeing the sun again. 


“Into each heart some tears must fall, but some day the sun will shine” - Ella Fitzgerald


The National Institute of Mental Health notes that “it’s just as important for an older person with symptoms of depression to seek treatment as it is for someone younger,” especially as untreated depression can affect our overall health and well-being. 


Here are some signs that it is time to seek support:

 

  • Noticeable changes in mood, energy level, or appetite
  • Feeling flat or having trouble feeling positive emotions
  • Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much
  • Difficulty concentrating, feeling restless, or on edge
  • Increased worry or feeling stressed
  • Anger, irritability or aggressiveness
  • Ongoing headaches, digestive issues, or pain
  • A need for alcohol or drugs
  • Sadness or hopelessness
  • Suicidal thoughts
  • Feeling flat or having trouble feeling positive emotions
  • Engaging in high-risk activities
  • Obsessive thinking or compulsive behavior
  • Thoughts or behaviors that interfere with work, family, or social life
  • Unusual thinking or behaviors that concern other people

You don’t need to weather the storm alone. Let us journey together to find the “brightness after the rain” (2 Samuel 23:4). 


We hope you’ll join us on Thursday, May 12th from 11 AM - Noon for our Faith Health Connection: Older Adults and Mental Health with the Therapeutic Alternatives Geriatric Adult Mental Health Specialty Team! Learn how to recognize and support the mental health needs of older adults in your faith community. Click here to register.
Safe Drinking Water is a Human Right by Dr. Caren Cooper and Emma Zawacki

Access to safe drinking water is a human right, and you have the ability to protect yourself and your community. Yet, water from our faucets is so plentiful that sometimes we take it for granted. Getting safe drinking water to our homes is actually complicated. Would you like to learn more about how drinking water comes to your home and how to ensure that your water is safe? 


Crowd the Tap is an EPA-funded public science project focused on eliminating the risk of lead in household drinking water. Lead can get into water from the pipes that transport water to homes. Most pipes were buried underground decades ago, before computers and digital records made it possible to create a comprehensive map. While many municipalities and private utilities are finding and replacing the shared portions of leaded pipe infrastructure, the private portions belonging to households are often left without support. An estimated 1 in 100 households receive water from leaded pipes. We direct the power of people like you and your community to take your water safety into your own hands. By completing the Crowd the Tap household assessment, including the water chemistry strip, you enable the project to screen your household to assess the level of risk for lead in water and locate potential hotspots of risk. Crowd the Tap can offer limited free laboratory testing and we prioritize based on this screening process. 


As a community member, you have an important role to play in creating new knowledge and understanding of safe drinking water. Scientists can’t do it alone: your engagement in public science programs, making your voice heard on issues that matter to you, and increasing the diversity of people, places and ideas that make science relevant, is beneficial to everyone’s wellbeing. 


Crowd the Tap is grateful for the partnership of the North Carolina Council of Churches in order to support safe drinking water for homes across North Carolina via their faith communities.  


Interested in participating?  

Learn more at CrowdtheTap.org where you’ll find instructional videos and text (and resources for teachers, if that’s of interest). Or to request water chemistry strips, email us at CrowdtheTap@ncsu.edu! 


Option 1: Participate as an individual! Email us with your name and address and we will send you one chemistry strip in the mail along with further information on how to complete the water chemistry test and household assessment.

Option 2: Become a faith community ambassador! Bring Crowd the Tap to your friends,

family and neighbors and act as a frontline member of our team. Get a group together and through a combination of online tutorials and zoom calls (and maybe a visit from a student ambassador!), we will provide you with the preparation and resources to immerse in the world of water safety that you can share with your community. 

 

If you have any questions or just want to say “hi,” please email us at CrowdtheTap@ncsu.edu.
BIPOC Mental Health Grant

New grant opportunity! Partners in Health and Wholeness is thrilled to announce a new mental health funding opportunity for BIPOC (Black & Brown, Indigenous, People of Color) faith communities.

Thanks to The Duke Endowment, PHW is able to offer this new grant opportunity of $5,000-10,000 for faith communities of color to apply towards COVID-19 mental health efforts. In mid-2022, we plan to award 50 grants in this funding range throughout the entire state. Later this year, there will be an opportunity to apply for a large grant, up to $50,000, to establish or expand a mental health resource hub in your region. This application period for this grant opportunity will be rolling, with quarterly reviews, from May 2022 until May 2023. Learn more here: PHW BIPOC Mental Health Grant Webpage
Highlighted Resources Staff Picks:

PHW BIPOC Mental Health Grant Webpage

PHW Mental Health Advocacy

Partners in Health and Wholeness Mental Health Resources

Clergy Reflections on Mental Health

Upcoming Events:
SACRED CONVERSATION: MENTAL HEALTH MONTH
Friday, May 6th, 11 a.m. - 12:00 pm

Join us to celebrate and kick off Mental Health Month with the Rev. Dr. Garry Crites, Executive Director of National Alliance on Mental Illness NC (NAMI NC)! Our faith traditions provide some of the greatest tools available for helping those who deal with mental health conditions and their loved ones. Unfortunately, they also serve as the source of some of the worst stigmas endured by these same dear people. In this session, we will talk about both the possibilities and the challenges at the intersection between religion and mental health, and we will discuss how we, in our faith traditions, can get it right. We will also learn about the many resources that NAMI NC provides.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
THE OPIOID CRISIS: THE FAITH COMMUNITY RESPONDS CLERGY BREAKFAST Lincolnton MAY 11 @ 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Do you want to learn more about the state of North Carolina when it comes to opioids? Are you interested in learning more about ways your congregation can get involved with the Opioid Crisis? If so please join us for a Clergy Breakfast on the Opioid Crisis: the Faith Community Responds. At this breakfast, you will learn about the issue, what harm reduction is, and what congregations can do to get involved. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

Faith Health Connection: Older Adults & Mental Health

MAY 12 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Join PHW for a Faith Health Connection: Older Adults & Mental Health on May 12th with the Therapeutic Alternatives Geriatric Adult Mental Health Specialty Team (GAST)! Learn how to recognize and support the mental health needs of older adults in your faith community

 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
2022 Faith and Health Summit - Save the Date!

Please plan to join the NC Council of Churches for the Partners in Health and Wholeness, Faith and Health Summit 2022. This year our theme will be “Mindful Together” as we gather together in Greensboro, NC for worship, workshops, and the opportunity to be together in support of health ministries across NC. We plan to be in person on September 15th from 9:30AM - 4:00PM and for an early evening meet and greet the night before. Details and a registration link to follow. We look forward to seeing you!

Get to PHW: PHW 101

Faith and Health Connection: The Opioid Settlement

Faith and Health Connection: The Science of Water

Faith Health Connection: NC Senior Games - YouTube

Sacred Conversations: Wholly Sacred and Beautifully Ordinary Water
Past Event Recordings:
PHW Collaborative Pledge and Mini-grant Cycle

 The PHW Collaborative Pledge is open as of January 15, and the first PHW Mini-Grant Cycle of 2022 opened as of Feb 01. The PHW Collaborative Pledge is a commitment to continuing a journey of putting faith into action in your community. Through the Collaborative Pledge, we aim to promote connections and relationships among our faith communities to share wisdom, provide support, and build a community around health and wholeness. Click here to take the Collaborative Pledge.

 The PHW Mini-Grant allows PHW Collaborative faith communities to support projects that promote health and wholeness while engaging the community. Faith Communities are able to request up to $1000 for an individual mini-grant, and up to $5000 for a community mini-grant among a minimum of three faith communities. Faith communities must have submitted a PHW Collaborative Pledge in the last 12 months for their application to be considered. Community mini-grants are limited. For more information please reach out to our Program Coordinator, Brandy Murray, at PHWinfo@ncchurches.org. Please click here to learn more about PHW Mini-Grants and how to apply
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