A new initiative spearheaded by Chestnut Health Systems in Bloomington aims to equip faith groups with information to help them better understand substance abuse and mental health struggles.
Launched earlier this year, the Illinois Faith and Recovery Collaborative offers four-course trainings for interested faith groups across the state, free of charge.
The Illinois Department of Public Health has described the opioid epidemic as "one of the most significant public health and public safety crises facing Illinois." The most recent data from the state agency counts 3,261 deaths from opioid overdoses in 2022.
"Based on your faith background, mental health and substance abuse disorder can be somewhat stigmatizing. It could be [considered] a moral, ethical or faith issue," community health specialist Nolan Recker told WGLT. "The purpose of these trainings is to help give some evidence-based, research-based terminology and practices to help serve your loved ones or your community members."
The collaborative stems from Chestnut's Center for Community Engagement, which focuses on providing training, support and other resources related to substance abuse recovery. Funding for initiatives through it comes partly from a State Opioid Response Grant administered by the Illinois Department of Human Services, as well as other state and federal sources.
Recker said the idea came from a national conference attended by a few Chestnut Health System [CHS] employees who listened to someone from Tennessee describe a similar program that had been launched 10 years ago. Over a decade, more than 6,600 trainings were delivered to faith groups, he said.
"We brought it back and we said the Illinois Department of Human Services, 'Hey, this is what Tennessee is doing — what do you think?' They were like, 'This is great. We're going to give you funding to pursue this project,'" Recker said.
After a year of development in 2023, the trainings were launched in January of this year. CHS said it would not yet name the churches that participated in the training, saying it had not yet gathered consent from any of them to do so; Recker also noted team members are gathering feedback on the trainings in the first year in order to refine them going forward.
However, Hope United Methodist Church pastor Jennie Edwards Bertrand told WGLT her congregation is among the participants — and they plan to finish all four trainings.
"It means that our congregation has been trained so that in our very community and DNA and hospitality, we interact with each other in a more informed way," she said, adding the trainings have provided a more clinical context to substance abuse disorder and scientific language.
"It reframes that understanding of any addiction and gives scientific understanding as to why this might be happening," she said. "Then as a church, we can look at that like a medical issue — just like if we have a parishioner who has a diagnosis of cancer. The way in which we'd come alongside that person, we can come alongside a person who's received a diagnosis of a substance abuse disorder or any mental health diagnosis."
Hope Church does plan to complete all four trainings that include teaching the basics of mental health, how to identify suicide risk, and the science behind addiction. A fourth training covers the use of Narcan, a prescription medication that can be administered to treat an opioid overdose.
Once the four trainings are complete, the church will become a "Certified Recovery Congregation" and will need to participate in two additional trainings each year to maintain that designation from CHS.
"The certification process isn't required," said Recker, adding that a common question from groups is what they will do with the certification if earned. "The main thing we ask is that you let the community know, 'We value the people who are going through a recovery journey so much that we wanted to better understand what they're going through, so we trained on it.' That's the biggest thing: Awareness.'"
The trainings are available to any faith group in the state; Recker said multiple, differing religious organizations have expressed interest in bringing the trainings to their members. He also emphasized the trainings don't tell anyone what they should or shouldn't believe.
"It's for everyone. These trainings don't have scripture or holy words or philosophical words in there for people to weed through," he said. "These trainings are designed for people of all faiths to get the evidence, the research. Then what they do with it, how they reconcile it and work that in with their faith — that's up to them. Whether it's in a temple, a mosque, a church, or in a VFW, we want to get this training out to as many people as we possibly can."
