Kim Batson (FCMI), The Necessity of Mental Health Awareness in a Faith Community


The Necessity of Mental Health Awareness in a Faith Community 

-------Kim McCahan Batson

 


A loving and beloved husband and father, he had recently faced a huge personal crisis and was seeking spiritual guidance from a compassionate clergy with thirty years in the ministry. Two days later, he was dead. 


“He told me straight out he was depressed,” recalled the stunned pastor, “I didn’t think I needed to ask if he was considering suicide. I thought if he was able to recognize and admit depression, he was on his way to recovery and would be okay.”


At the same time the church rallied around that family with support and love, they also spoke in hushed tones about cause of death – if they mentioned it at all.  And I, who had a depressed husband at home, began a slow quest to empathize with and support people who I knew were living with emotional pain.  


My journey was kick-started a few years later by two complementary experiences.  Having recently moved to Chapel Hill, I was secretary at Amity UMC, working alongside interim pastor Rev. Vernon Tyson. One Sunday, he said it out loud – depression – death by suicide – by a fellow member of the clergy no less. After a lifetime of church attendance, Reverend Tyson preached the very first sermon on mental illness I had ever heard!


Around the same time, thanks to Gove Elder personally visiting Amity (and so many other churches) on a regular basis, I learned about the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and a fledging organization called Faith Connections on Mental Illness (FCMI). FCMI was founded to provide education, advocacy, and support to faith communities in a quest to help eliminate the stigma and shame of mental illness. Thanks to these entities, Amity began publicizing and participating in various mental health initiatives.  I learned about the biological basis of mental illnesses (and much more) by attending NAMI’s Family-to-Family, 8 weekly sessions for those with loved ones who battle mental illness – FREE like all of NAMI’s programs. In 2010, I participated in NAMIWalks event (on an Amity team) and became active in FCMI. On May 18, 2024 I will join my 15th NAMIWalk, serving as captain of FCMI’s perennially top fund-raising team.


Also in 2010, I became the website administrator of FCMI. The following year, FCMI began the first of a 10-year run of annual conferences that drew an average of 250 attendees and featured nationally-known and locally respected experts in the mental health field while offering optional professional credits by AHEC. 


As FCMI has evolved in the last few years, moving away from the huge annual conference, we continue to seek new means to provide faith communities and individuals lifechanging, and sometimes lifesaving, resources, to help normalize conversations around mental illness by clergy and congregants.  Among our initiatives: we help coordinate this Clergy Blog (new subscribers always welcome); have offered youth and suicide prevention workshops, with more in the pipeline; published mental health crisis line contact guides on our website; hold bi-monthly informational programs; and sponsor certified teachings of Mental Health First Aid, Youth Mental Health First Aid, and QPR (think CPR for suicide prevention). We are happy to publicize the mental health offerings of others and are open to joining with faith-based or community partners in sponsoring mental health events. 


We invite you to join FCMI as we field our 11th NAMIWalks team.  NAMIWalks NC is a mental health awareness and fundraising event. This year’s fun/inspirational gathering will be held on Saturday, May 18, 2024 at Perimeter Park in Morrisville. It is free to participate. Half of the donations to FCMI’s team will go to NAMI NC. The other half will be allocated to Wake, Durham, and Orange County NAMI affiliates. Help us maintain our FIRST PLACE standing by donating any amount. Better yet – sign up to walk with us in person or in spirit. 


To learn more about FCMI, please visit www.FCMI-NC.org. To discuss partnering or mental health education opportunities, please email info@FCMI-NC.org 


Peace and Blessings,

Kim


Kim McCahan Batson

Chair, Board of Directors 

Website Administrator

Faith Connections on Mental Illness, Inc.

Home (fcmi-nc.org)

info@FCMI-NC.org 


FCMI is an interfaith 501c3 non-profit whose mission is connecting across faiths in mental health ministry.


______________________________________

The Clergy and Mental Health Blog is a forum for faith leaders to share insights and observations, sometimes speaking from personal experience, about faith and mental health.  We welcome diversity of thought and perspective.  The view of authors are their own and do not represent the views of the blog as a whole.

Please send comments and questions to: ClergyMHBlog@gmail.com





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