Pathways to Promise and the American Association of Pastoral Counselors have begun to implement a national training and educational initiative called National Training Initiative (NTI). This emerged from the National Mental Health Summit held in Belleville, IL, sponsored by Pathways to Promise in 2009. Pilot Projects in St. Louis, MO, and several communities in Washington State, supported by foundations and by state departments of mental and behavioral health, have just recently completed their first year of implementation.
An NTI site covers a city, county, or region. Guiding each local Training Site is a planning group made up of representatives from key and diverse stakeholders: faith groups, consumers and families, community mental health providers and advocates, pastoral counselors, parish nurses, and other community allies. The NTI planning group helps organize neighborhood clusters of congregations and other community partners, who participate in core NTI trainings on mental health and substance use, as well as other trainings identified in the annual curriculum of continuing education. The result is reduced stigma, increased knowledge, and the development of skills in promoting recovery.
The training resources developed for the St. Louis project are now available online at pathways2promise.org. They are available for individuals within a congregation or as train-the-trainer resources.
An NTI Advisory Task Force will seek national partners among faith groups, agencies, national organizations, state and county behavioral health programs, and foundations.
If you are interested in participating or wish to know more about this initiative, please contact:
Rev. Robert Dell, Chair
Douglas M. Ronsheim, LMFT, D.Min.
Pathways to Promise
American Association of Pastoral Counselors
815-786-6341
703-385-6967
bob.dell@comcast.net
doug@aapc.org