Mental Health Inquiry
Dear Pastors
This is my second the last blog post for 2018. In this post I would like to encourage you to add 12 A4 pages to your reading pile over summer. Next week a prayer idea.
The 12 pages of reading I’m talking about are the ‘Executive Summary and the 40 Recommendations’ of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction. The 200 page report was released last week and it makes for very important and interesting reading. Last week all news channels were full of it. You can find the report here.
This inquiry was announced early this year. The catalyst was no surprise really. The widespread concern about mental health services (nice way of saying, ‘the system is broken’) and the calls for wide-ranging inquiry from service users, their families and whanau, people affected by suicide, people working in health, media, Iwi, and advocacy groups.
Do you know?
- NZ has persistently high suicide rates. This year it jumped again from 601 in 2017 to 668 (preliminary) year ending June 2018. Our suicide rate for young people is among the worst in the OECD. For teenage boys it is the worst.
- Each year 20,000 people attempt to take their own life. No you didn’t mis-read that….20,000 people who are feeling ‘deeply’ hopeless and helpless. This is far more than just having a bad day.
- In addition to the human costs, the annual cost of the burden of serious mental health, including addiction, in NZ is an estimated $12billion or 5% of GDP.
Last Saturday I met a regular kiwi family with three high functioning adult kids in their 20’s, two of whom are on anti-depressants and yesterday I worshipped with a small group of folks, with at least half on some kind of psychiatric meds.
Do you struggle to understand this? I sure do. How have we gotten ourselves into this state of affairs? Why are so many people so miserable in a country like ours that they can’t keep on living? Doesn’t this say a lot about the devil’s work in the world……..who has come ‘to steal, kill and destroy’?
Dear Pastors, we peddle in life and hope, don’t we? We are with Jesus when He said, “BUT I have come to give you life in it’s fullness”. And He definitely didn’t have a get rich scheme in mind (or even money) when He said that. We are part of ‘communities of hope’ where people who are experiencing psychological distress of any kind can find hope and help.
There are three reponses that the Executive Summary mentions quite a bit. They are prevention, early intervention and community support. For three years now I have convened a ‘Mental Health and the Church’ Conference with an absolute conviction that we as the church in NZ can make a contribution in all three areas. How good it would be if we could provide regular ‘talk therapy’ sessions for example, now deemed to be a valid ‘therapy’ in all or most of our churches up and down the land. How good it would be if we as the Christian community decided to really understand this issue and the causes of mental illness and then curated responses that would ‘build fences at the top the cliff’ rather than add to the ambulance queue at the bottom where it is so much harder to rebuild broken lives and certainly so much more costly?
After this year’s conference Trish Hendry provided us with a superb document about what we as local churches can do that we are willing to send you free of charge.
Next year in September I will convene our fourth MHAC conference. We will take a deep dive into ‘addictions’. Please keep an eye on our website.
Happy reading
Alan
Beautiful Christmas Music Selection From Chris Tomlin and Lauren Daigle.
Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.
