event

Event Archive | Shared Resources (General)

Topic: Multicultural Spiritual Practices for Personal Well-Being

Date: Thursday, July 15, 2010

Time: 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time / 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. Central Time

3:00 - 4:30 p.m. Mountain Time / 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. Arizona-Pacific Time 

Introduction:

Join us for an enriching conversation about how spiritual practices support well-being.

Many consumers and family members identify spirituality as an important source of wellness, resiliency, and recovery. The leading edge of healthcare nationwide is “integrated medicine” that addresses the body, mind, and spirit. Yet spirituality is largely an untapped resource in the public mental health field.

This STAR Center teleconference will open a dialogue about spirituality in mental health wellness and recovery, beginning with the personal: what each of us has found helpful in supporting our own well-being on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

The key questions to be addressed, in roundtable fashion, are:

• Describe a spiritual practice you have used to support your personal well-being.
• How does it benefit you?
• How may others learn more about this practice?

Join us on Thursday July 15th when you will have the opportunity to share examples from your own life.

Speaker:       Rev. Laura L. Mancuso, MS, CRC, Interfaith Chaplain

Laura worked in leadership roles in public mental health at the local, state, and national levels for 15 years before her own journey of health challenges and personal losses culminated in a calling to become ordained. As an interfaith minister, she strives to honor all faith traditions, as well as the beliefs, practices, and life philosophies of secular individuals who do not relate to religion.

She served as an Employment Training Specialist at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Director of Technical Assistance at the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, and Project Manager with the County Mental Health Department in Santa Barbara. She has been an active advocate for the inclusion of workers with psychiatric disabilities in the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the hiring of consumers as peer specialists. She is a nationally certified rehabilitation counselor.

Laura is a member of the Executive Committee of Healing in America (www.healinginamerica.com), the National Advisory Board of the Research & Training Center on Psychiatric Disability and Self-Determination at the University of Illinois at Chicago (http://www.cmhsrp.uic.edu/nrtc/), and a founding member of the Statewide Steering Committee of the California Mental Health & Spirituality Initiative (www.mhspirit.org).

Laura serves the mental health community in California as a chaplain.

During this call, participants will have the opportunity to:

• Share examples of the personal spiritual practices they employ to support their personal well-being
• Hear from others about diverse spiritual practices they have found helpful
• Discuss the role of spirituality as an element of culture
• Compare and contrast “spirituality” and “religion”
• Learn about the core principles and values of the California Mental Health & Spirituality Initiative
• Access a list of online and print resources for further learning

Link to Handouts:

• Values Statement of the California Mental Health & Spirituality Initiative (35 KB.pdf)

• Resource List on Spirituality & Wellness (39 KB.pdf)

• "Emergency Response Kits" for stress management in 13 languages have been developed by Capacitar International, a non-profit organization based in Santa Cruz California that promotes healing worldwide through wellness practices, team building, and self-development. For more information, please visit www.capacitar.org.
  
  Kits are available in the following languages:
• Arabic (424 KB.pdf)
• English (240 KB .doc)
• French (384 KB .doc)
• Eng/French/Kinyarwanda (128 KB .doc)
• German (312 KB .doc)
• Haiti-Creole (632 KB .pdf)
• Hebrew (372 KB .pdf)
• Indonesian (280 KB .doc)
• Portuguese (260 KB .doc)
• Russian (430 KB .pdf)
• Spanish (292 KB .doc)
• Swahili (940 KB .pdf)
• Xhosa (292 KB.pdf)

AUDIO

The STAR Center gratefully acknowledges SAMHSA as the funding source for the STAR Center’s work and activities. Please visit SAMHSA/CMHS at http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/cmhs for many helpful resources, self-help tools and guides, and links.

The STAR Center promotes consumer-directed approaches that maximize self-determination and recovery and assist people with serious mental health challenges to decrease their dependence on expensive social services as well as to avoid psychiatric hospitalization. Each person is invited to: take part in effective recovery, mental and behavioral health, and wellness practices;
  take responsibility for self-determination, recovery, and wellness tools, supports, and practices;
and to make a meaningful contribution to community life by sharing and expressing strengths, gifts, and skills.

   -     Empowerment     -       Independence   -     Responsibility    -     Choice     -   

 -   Respect and Dignity -

 “Let your Star shine!”

The views and opinions that may be presented and discussed during the teleconference will not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and should not be construed as such.