Great Community Relationships help the Poor Kick Depression

My last post had the stats for depression and let'sa face it, they are in a word:

Depressing!

I have also been positing about Pastors leaving the Professional Ministry because of Burn Out. This almost always includes Depression and Anxiety, the twin emotional issues for Pastors and Church Workers. In this post and the next one I am looking at the power of a supportive group/community to relieve Depression and Anxiety.

The following article summarizes a Rand Report on that topic. It gives us great hope that we can do something about offering relief to people without charging them for professional counseling or anti-depression drugs.

Improving care for depression in low-income communities — places where such help is frequently unavailable or hard to find — provides greater benefits to those in need when community groups such as churches and even barber shops help lead the planning process, according to a new study.

When compared to efforts that provided only technical support to improve depression care, a planning effort co-led by community members from diverse services programs further improved clients' mental health, increased physical activity, lowered their risk of becoming homeless and decreased hospitalizations for behavioral problems. 

The study was conducted in two large under-resourced areas of Los Angeles and the findings are reported in papers published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study team included researchers from the RAND Corporation and UCLA, and community partners from Healthy African American Families, QueensCare Health and Faith Partnership, and Behavioral Health Services. 

“People who received help as a part of the community-led effort to improve depression care were able to do a better job navigating through the daily challenges of life,” said psychiatrist Kenneth Wells, the project's lead RAND investigator. “People became more stable in their lives and were at lower risk of facing a personal crisis, such as experiencing poor quality of life or becoming homeless.” 

Researchers say the findings demonstrate that incorporating an array of community groups in planning efforts to treat depression, and then providing trainings to address depression jointly across health care and community agencies, can provide a more-complete support system and help depressed people make broader improvements in health and social outcomes. 

If you are interested in discovering how easy it is for your church or community group to do this see our books and video tapes. The teaching and training is simple and available for Pastors, Laity and Community Workers including barbers, beauticians, etc.