Educating Congregations

• Caring Congregation Curriculum by The Rev. Barbara F. Meyers

  • The South Nassau UU Congregation will be doing a 10 week series based on Caring Congregations for its congregation. See www.snuuc.org for additional information.

  • The San Jose Pastoral Care committee had Barbara Meyers as a trainer. The church also sponsored a session with representatives from NAMI who shared resources from advanced directive.

• Mental Health Matters TV show has discussion questions with each episode. For these showings, the sponsoring congregation used a DVD for the show obtained from Barbara Meyers.

  • Bill LaPorte-Bryan used the Alzheimers show for education at Hartford congregation with a local guest speaker with great success
  • The UU Church of Worcester sponsored a program based on the show on Anxiety, and supplemented it with a guest neurologist. It was a success with many people staying much later than the event was originbally scheduled for.

• March 2010 - Interfaith Mental Health Coalition Conference Bob Skrocki is helping develop the newly formed Suburban Chicago Interfaith Mental Health Coalition to put on its first annual conference on Tuesday November 9, 2010 in Elgin, IL. See http://scimc.wikispaces.com/ for more information on the coalition's work.

• Mental Health Books, Seminars and other Congregational Activities

  • Book: Mental Illness and Your Town - 37 Ways for Communities to Help and Heal by Larry Hayes of the UU Congregation of Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

  • Book: The Inherent Worth and Dignity of ALL Individuals: Encouraging Full Participation in our Unitarian Universalist Congregations by Dr. Bobby Newman of the South Nassau UU Congregation.

  • Seminar: Dr. Bobby Newman gave a full day seminar entitled Full Inclusion of People with Developmental Disabilities in Religious Services: Helping Families and Congregations Fulfill Their Promises and Principles at the South Nassau UU Congregation on April 17th, 2009.

• Barbara Meyers has taught mental health at SKSM, and plans to do more. 

• Barbara Meyers has written a short document with mental health information designed for ministers to use. It is currently being reviewed.

Educating the Denomination

• Members are encouraged to sign up to give presentations at DAs and GAs.

• GA: Barbara Meyers has presented the Caring Congregation curriculum at GA twice

• PCD: Barbara Meyers has given several presentations about mental health at PCD District Assemblies.

• CMWD: Bob Skrocki and Toni Maddi gave a workshop at the CMWD District Assembly in 2008 about Caring Congregation Training and plans
• CMWD: Bob Skrocki and others presented a workshop "Developing Caring Congregations", on April 24, 2009 at the UU Central Midwest District Assembly.