CF D Nebistinsky

Donna Abustinsky, pastoral associate at St. Elizabeth and Sene Parish in Mechanicsburg, discusses the mental health ministry she leads. The ministry aims to provide spiritual support groups, reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, and offer resources for those in need. They have partnered with NAMI and are organizing talks and presentations. They also plan to run a video series called "When a Loved One Dies by Suicide" to provide support and education on the topic. The ministry is funded by a grant and offers free events to the public. Welcome to Catholic Focus, I'm Joan Abustinsky, your host, and today I'm joined by someone I know very well. It's my lovely wife of over 40 years, Donna Abustinsky. Donna is the pastoral associate at St. Elizabeth and Sene Parish in Mechanicsburg. Welcome to Holy Family Radio. Thank you. It's good to be here. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do, first of all, what you do at the parish. Oh, well, I do a lot of different things at the parish as pastoral associate. I coordinate and facilitate RCIA, I do home visits, I am a certified spiritual director, so I meet with people in spiritual direction, I help with liturgy planning, lots of different things. And one of the things that has come up that's been new for me and for the parish is this mental health ministry that I am now leading. Yeah, that's why we wanted to bring you on here today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that ministry? Sure. Mental health ministry is simply titled Mental Health Ministry at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. And it has a focus with three different goals. Let me give you a little background as to how it got started. During the COVID shutdown, I was just investigating and searching and of course, mindlessly scrolling, unfortunately, through Facebook and some other things like a lot of people. But I came across a group called Trauma Informed Parishes. And that group was just posting information, posting different memes and different publications that could be used, knowing that once this COVID situation was ended, that we were going to be ministering to those people who had experienced a lot of trauma from that situation. So I ended up doing a Zoom call with that woman. And during that process, she said to me, Oh, you seem to have an interest in mental health and in particular, you should get in touch with this deacon. His name is Ed Schoener. And he's from Scranton, Pennsylvania. And the interesting thing is that this woman that I was talking to had no idea that I was only two hours south of Scranton, Pennsylvania. So it seemed like a real God given gift to be able to connect with Deacon Schoener. I eventually did do that. And we talked, I found another parishioner who was interested in helping me launch a ministry composed of mental health support. So I took a course through the University of San Diego, and was certified then to launch this ministry here at the parish. So in conjunction with the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers and Deacon Ed Schoener, who is the president of that organization, we went ahead and got started. I applied for a grant through the association and was awarded $10,000 to use to get the ministry up and running and to provide some support to local folks through the parish ministry. So we have three basic goals that we came up with with this ministry. Again, like I said, it's just called Mental Health Ministry at St. Elizabeth's ANC, and it doesn't have a fancy name. It's just got this right out there, right out front name so that people know who we are and what we're about. So there are three things that we do. The first is to provide spiritual support groups. So again, myself and another parishioner, and then I trained a few more, we meet on the second and fourth Wednesdays at the parish. We have two different types of support groups that we run. We run one group that is for the family and friends of those who are walking a journey of mental health illness, and then we also have a group, a support group for those individuals who are walking through that. We also, as part of our ministry, have determined that we would like to work on ways to reduce the stigma that's attached to mental health issues. So for example, when someone has cancer, you don't say they are cancer, but when somebody receives a diagnosis of, say, bipolar disorder, we say, oh, that person's bipolar. So those are the kinds of things, even simple use of language, that needs to go away. We need to understand more clearly that this is a diagnosable illness on many different levels and reduce that stigma so that people are seeking help, that people are looking for resources and not just kind of maintaining things on their own. So reducing the stigma involves a lot of education, so we are also, as part of our ministry, providing public workshops, public education and awareness. The other piece is providing resources. So what we've begun doing is gathering all of those different pieces in one place. So for example, if someone needs just a short amount of support or needs some questions answered, we know where to send them, and we're currently in the process of gathering all of that and publishing it on our website. Our parish website is being rebuilt right now, but that page eventually will be a major part of that. So those are the three major pieces behind the ministry itself. We are not certified counselors. We are not therapists, but we are there to listen and provide those resources for anybody who comes. Yeah, it's one of those things that doesn't get talked about very much. Like you said, the mental health issue is something that is usually not discussed. Other things, like you said, are, you know, if someone has a diagnosis of cancer, that is something that is talked about. But when it comes to mental health, it's one of those, it's still a taboo subject. So I think this is really an important mission that you've undertaken. Tell us about some of the activities you have coming up. Sure. One of the things that we did back in the fall was we partnered with NAMI. NAMI is the National Alliance of Mental Illness, and they have a branch in Cumberland Perry County. The church is located in Cumberland County, but we also have parishioners in York County. So we're reaching out also to NAMI of York County as well to kind of come on board with us. We have scheduled some talks. We had already had a few speakers in. Back in August, I provided, or the group provided, mental health first aid training. We had about 30 people show up for that. It is a certificate program similar to CPR or first aid training. Actually, Deacon Shoner came down and did that training with us. And we hope to provide that again and possibly reach out to the local school districts that our parish serves and invite them in to have that training for maybe some of their teachers, their counselors, their nurses, and so forth. So that's one of the big pieces we're looking at. Another thing that we've done and are planning to do is continuing to hopefully, our goal was once a month. We're trying now at least once a month or once every two months to bring in speakers that we know are professional, that we know that we have vetted, of course, through organizations and can provide information. We've had two other presentations, but the one coming up on February 15th is the first one that we are doing in partnership with NAMI. We are bringing up a doctor from Penn State Health, Penn State Hershey. Her name is Dr. Dahlia McGurgy, and she is coming to speak on anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are one of the most prevalent issues that most people are dealing with, and this is open to the public. It will be 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 15th. There's no cost. Again, like I said, the grant money that I received is taking care of any kind of cost that we might, you know, donations to the organizations that come in, a donation or fee that the doctor might have. So everything we offer is free to the public. So that's our next event, 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 15th at the church, and again, that is the doctor from Penn State Hershey who's coming to speak on anxiety disorders. That sounds like it's going to be really, really interesting. You know, a lot of young people are dealing with that issue right now. Right? I mean... There probably aren't any of us that haven't had at some point in time some type of anxiety disorder, whether it's a full-blown panic attack or just nervousness in situations, a fear of flying, just all kinds of things that provide or cause, I guess, anxiety and anxious feelings within people. Yeah, and the pandemic did not help with that either. No, not at all. Not at all. That was not a good thing. In speaking to some of my friends who are mental health professionals and in consultation with some of those people, the rise in treatment that's necessary for all sorts of things has just absolutely been phenomenal after COVID. Unfortunately, the number of certified counselors, certified therapists, and this is a whole other issue, has decreased significantly. There's just not enough to go around. No, not even close, not even close. So that's also another piece to this is making people aware of the resources like I mentioned before. What else do you have going on? Well, looking ahead, we have an interesting program that I think will be of great use to a lot of people. Deacon Shoner started this ministry because he lost his daughter, Katie, back in 2016. Katie had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had struggled with that for about 11 years and ended up losing her life to suicide. So Deacon Shoner wrote her obituary. It went viral. And that's when he was called to start this ministry. He has joined forces basically with some other major Catholic figures, including Bishop John Dolan and Monsignor Charles Pope, to form or to produce a video series with the Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries called When a Loved One Dies by Suicide. And it's based on the book of the same name that Deacon and Bishop Dolan have written. We have many copies of it available to the public and we do have the video series that we're going to be running. It's an eight-week series. It starts March 1st and it's based on these videos and the small book and just a discussion group. One does not have to have experienced suicide in their family to attend. You don't even have to be Catholic to attend. It is based on Catholic teaching. But I think it's a tool that would be important for everybody to participate in. A lot of good stuff going on here in the area for all the people in the area around Mechanicsburg and the surrounding area. So thank you for everything that you're doing with regard to this mental health ministry. Donna, we have to wrap it up there. The time is saying it's time to go. So thank you for being a guest here on Catholic Focus and thank you everybody for listening to this segment of Catholic Focus. Donna, I'll see you at dinner. Sure. Good night. There you go. I can't get it to stop. Wait a minute. There you go. I can't get it to stop.