What happens when a community's spirit breaks? Perhaps, even more poignant, how best does a community's spirit mend? And, who conducts that delicate work of remembering, constructing or re-constructing, building or re-building after severe loss(es) that overwhelm an entire community?

​Often, the mending of a community's spirit occurs through the dedication and simultaneous efforts of mental health professionals, social workers, somatic therapists, artists, sports coaches, school teachers and counselors, and youth workers, along with chaplains, clergy and ministers, and spiritual directors. Each of these important threads, together, weave the tapestry of whole community care. In fact, those who study healing after collective trauma consistently find that the most "resilient" communities tend to bring about healing and restoration when local leaders listen carefully to survivors and create solutions with survivors – solutions that represent the local community and which often include acts of fellowship, nourishment, lament, shoring up senses of belonging, movement, and descriptions of what has happened, what is happening, and/or what will happen.

Those who lead these acts of healing often are referred to as "second responders" and "healers". Studies also have shown that second responders and healers are at risk of developing compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, and other forms of stress relevant to the work of long-term recovery. 

​So who heals the healers? And how best do they heal?

Healing the Healers, a film project by Odyssey Impact, partially funded by the Lilly Endowment, and in partnership with ICTG, focuses on answering these particular questions related to the broad long term recovery processes of communities that experience violence. This living conversation begins with members of the ministerial alliance of Newtown, CT, as one starting point in observing how healers heal. The conversation gradually expands to involve expressions of how neighboring faith leaders, chaplains, and health providers reached out to support members of the Newtown ministerial alliance as they supported survivors and family members of students, teachers, and administrators of Sandy Hook Elementary School. The conversation continues, as viewers of these first five films host conversations in their own communities, including using corresponding essays and questions, to consider the diverse and varying dynamics that interface when any community's spirit breaks because of acts of violence. 

As this living conversation starts with the Newtown, CT, ministerial alliance and gradually moves outward, viewers have opportunity to consider critical issues related to traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress, injustice, how different communities and community leaders experience and respond to trauma, how faith leaders support one another across common divides, and how communities grieve and practice healing together.

​ICTG is grateful to Odyssey Impact for getting a broader public conversation going in this way, honored to partner with them, and proud that so many of our directors, advisors, and staff have contributed substantially to the educational components of this project. We look forward to continuing to participate in the expansion of this living conversation. 

Learn more about how you and your community can get involved by following links below. 

CALM

1. Take the time to lament – The first sign of inoculation is reading or hearing a story and quickly passing on to the next thing. Stop, take a deep breath, empathize, feel as if this happened in your context.
2. Take a break from the news – The sheer volume of trauma around our world could keep us in a constant state of lament, sadness, and fear. Learn when to turn off the news flow. Play, draw, exercise, pray.
3. Measure your stress – Assess your own threshold of stress. On a scale of one to five, how is this latest event registering, with five being highly stressful? If zero or one perhaps it is time to lament. If it is four or five perhaps it is time take a break. 

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CONNECT

1. Find a “lament” community – Having a few people in our lives who “feel” more than us can be helpful. They are the ones we can count on to shine the light on those traumatic events and people who have been impacted.
2. Get accountability for personal care – As you give priority to personal care you will have more capacity for lament, compassion and action. Invite a few others to be sure you are not either taking on the full weight of the world or allowing yourself to be mired in apathy
3. Form an “awareness” and “action” community – Connect with people who do not hide from their awareness of trauma or the importance of taking small action steps to help in whatever way possible

COMMUNICATE

1. Understand your physical well-being – This is healthy internal body communication. The title of Bessel Vanderkolk’s book speaks for itself, “The Body Keeps the Score.”
2. Bring in the family and friends – Communicate your sadness. Having a safe group around us allows us to freely express our sadness, lament, compassion and desire to act without feeling the need to say “everything is fine.”
3. Debriefing with ministries and faith-based care groups – What better place to move from inoculation/apathy to lament and action? Walking together in words and presence brings back the appropriate “feeling” we need
4. Trust in the God of hope and peace – God understands the pain and suffering in this world. Communicating our trust in God can bring hope and peace beyond our understanding.

You may also find this book on Joy, edited by Christian Wiman, meaningful in this season of conducting “safer at home” practices. In the introduction, Wiman speaks eloquently to how experiences of loss and elusiveness interplay with perceptions of joy. As much as we might prefer them to be distinct from one another, nevertheless, they often call one another to mind and heart. ​

Following 9/11, and many other types of disasters since, I've heard a lot of stories about new relationships. Stories about the marriages that occurred or the babies that were conceived. Stories about how, for the people telling the stories, tragedy helped them to clarify what they wanted in life, what mattered to them, what joy they had right in front of them, or how love helped them feel more grounded amid incredibly destabilizing loss. ​

Faith leaders, especially in the aftermath of great community loss, hold a quintessential role in shepherding, or hosting space(s) for, the wide range of responses to tragedy that may unfold within their congregation. They help the congregation to bear witness, together, to the scope of what has happened – not only the catalyst(s) of heartache, but the range of responses as well. They honor each person's perspective, while helping one another to participate in co-creating senses of belonging.

​Here are some of the ways that happens:

• One type of reaction does not dictate the group's response.
• While all manner of reactions may be understood as "normal" responses to extreme stress, not all reactions of helpful or healthful. Without shaming, space can be created for acknowledging reactions (i.e., through confession, prayer, pastoral counseling) and encouraging healthful practices for managing stress, anger, and impulsivity (including referrals to classes or groups for learning how to manage common strong reactions). Additionally, appropriate boundaries can be created to ensure any potential acts of harm are acknowledged appropriately and managed corporately in ways that ensure the health and safety of everyone involved. 
• Both public and intimate settings are helpful for healing. These may include worship services, "town hall" informational meetings, small group studies or prayer meetings, and practices where individual self-select to participate (such as rooms or outdoor areas set aside for labyrinths, individual prayer or journaling, or stations of the cross, for example.)
• Acts of care are encouraged, both within the congregation and as forms of outreach to the surrounding community. 

Overall, faith leaders guide the congregation in discovering, living out, and recalling the story of who they are before, during, and after tremendous upheaval. 

Read more from Rev. Dr. Storm Swain here.

In the coming weeks, pastoral care needs will escalate exponentially as COVID-19 impacts continue to increase. Here are some ways your ministry team can prepare: ​

Creating a Trajectory Map
Use the Phases of Disaster as a starting place, and begin to draft a trajectory map for your organization or community. You can share your maps on twitter, facebook, instagram, or linked in, using hashtag #carerestores. 

As you're creating your map, consider the differences your organization or community are experiencing compared with traditional understandings of episodic or singular incident disasters. For example, many groups are finding their sense of the initial "hero" stage has been a far sharper incline or spike, as leaders and volunteers have rushed in this last week to solve as much as they can and now, even within just a week or two, are experiencing significant senses of fatigue. The fatigue appears to be related to a combination of the strong push to help along with the remarkable speed at which new information is released, often changing and becoming out-dated even hour by hour. 

Continue to use your map as a draft or living document with your team, a template that you can update over the coming weeks and months. 

Recognize the Range of Impact
Over the next several weeks and months, your congregants, ministry recipients, or community members, will experience a range of impacts. Some of these will be directly COVID-19 related. For example:

• How will you or your team provide care to individuals who may be suffering or dying alone, unable to receive visitors? Will you provide them with phone calls, cards, or deliveries? 
• How will you or your team provide care to family members of those individuals, who are unable able to be with their loved ones as they suffer or die alone? 
• What will memorial services look like in times of physical distancing? 
• How are you or your team providing care to first responders, medical personnel, behavioral health personal, and emergency responders who are a part of your congregation or ministry group? 

Some of the impacts will be indirectly related to COVID-19. For example:

• How are you or your team providing care to congregants, ministry group members, or community members who are experiencing significant loss of income, loss of jobs, inability to access food, or inability to access medical care deemed non-urgent or unrelated to COVID-19? 

Pacing Care for Sustainability
As you consider what needs already are present and what may be coming, in what ways can you and your staff pace and nourish yourselves now so that you can avoid burnout and provide sustainable care through the long-term? 

At the Institute, we have a phrase we use in times of collective trauma response: disaster is your business now. It's a mantra that helps us and our service recipients bring to mind the new reality that now is not business as usual. ​

Even so, all of that is easier said that done. It's difficult to fully take in all that any disaster means, let alone what the ramifications will be of a global pandemic. 

In terms of congregational care, here are some important things to consider is you focus on the primary business of response to COVID-19. 

Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health
The longer quarantines last, the less people are infected or die, but the more behavioral health challenges may arise related to people being cooped up in their homes, having limited touch, and having lost significant income or jobs. The shorter quarantines last, the more people are infected or die. This presents additional behavioral health challenges related to grief and bereavement, especially if people are unable to visit their loved ones in times of distress or death, as well as challenges related to conducting memorial services under these circumstances. 

What you can do to prepare: Continue to keep your staff and self informed about the trajectory of the virus in your community. Maintain an up-to-date referral list of behavioral health providers in your community to refer your congregants to as needed. ​

Worship and Care
Depending on the trajectory of the virus in your community, your congregation may need to provide worship and pastoral and peer care services remotely for many weeks or months. Your staff and volunteers also may need to provide ongoing volunteer services to assist more persons in your congregation or community who are unable to access basic necessities, including groceries, assistance with utilities maintained online, banking, and so forth. 

What you can do to prepare: Continue to keep your staff and self informed about the trajectory of the virus in your community. Also stay informed about what services your greater community is providing that your congregants can access as needed, or how your congregation can assist your greater community in meeting needs. Consider ways you can help your healthy volunteer base pace themselves for the long term. Encourage volunteers and staff to take regular breaks and not over-function, in order to be available for the duration and avoid inadvertent burnout. If you are part of a smaller congregation, consider partnering with a larger congregation in your area that can assist with remote worship and care services. 

Financial Support
Your congregants, your community, and your congregation likely will experience financial challenges in the weeks and months ahead. These may include loss of jobs, loss of businesses, significantly reduced investments, reduced donations, and so forth. 

What you can do to prepare: Continue to keep your staff and self informed about the trajectory of the virus in your community. Consider whether there are important, and frank, conversations that may need to be had with your governing body about the reality of your congregation's financial state before the virus and what it may experience with loss of income. Recognize the fact that you may have to pace not only yourselves but what you focus on in the weeks ahead to ensure stability, if you are able. If your congregation is not facing significant financial risk, consider the ways you may prepare to assist or even lead your community in providing financial assistance for persons in the community that may endure great financial challenges in the weeks ahead. 

Remember that you may not have the size organization to address all types of needs, and that you personally cannot be all things to all people. Anticipate now the kind of person you want to be, and the kind of people you want to encourage your congregants to be, in light of long term challenges and what is feasible. Take time now to prepare for how best to practice those traits amid remarkable adversity. 

Additionally, you may find these posts helpful as well: 

• How Long Term Response to Pandemic Differs From Other Types of Disaster Response
  
• ​Metabolizing Adversity
• What Kind of Person are You In An Emergency
• Preparing and Responding to Pandemic Virus

On March 13, 2020, Desta Goehner, Director of Congregational Relations at California Lutheran University convened an online forum for over 200 clergy, pastors, and faith-based leaders to consider together what ministry may look like in the days, weeks and months to come around the public health crisis related to the coronavirus COVID-19. 

​The conversation included the stories, wisdom and experiences of these four:

1. Mike Anderson, a pastor in the epicenter of Kirkland, WA who shifted ministry, worship and pastoral care due to COVID-19.

2. Priscilla Austin, a Seattle area pastor, who describes how ministry is changing and also how she is caring for herself in the midst of it all.

3. Kate Wiebe, MDiv, PhD, trauma expert and Executive Director of the Institute for Collective Trauma and Growth, who shares about what ministry looks like in times of crisis and trauma.
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4. Rozella White, coach and disaster chaplain, who talks about spiritual care and emotional support for leaders in times of crisis.

Together, along with a vibrant chat room conversation with many participants, Desta and the speakers fostered a powerful time.

Below you can find the resources related to the talk:
1. Recorded web gathering: http://bit.ly/MITCCLU
2. Open Google Drive: http://bit.ly/MinistryintimesofCrisis
In this folder you'll find the chat box notes with resources and questions, the recorded web gathering and the slides with the guest speaker information.
3. Webpage with all the details: http://bit.ly/CLUcongregationalrelations

This gathering also developed into a weekly series, which you can find more details about on the CLU Congregational Relations webpage listed above. 

Anne Lamott spoke at my church, in Santa Barbara, a couple years ago. She was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for a church collaborative effort my husband helps to coordinate, offering shelter for neighbors without homes. Among various topics that evening, she described some of what she experienced in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Newtown, CT. As a volunteer Sunday School teacher, she recalled instinctively wanting to be with her kids and to provide them with more opportunities to create, to feel safe, and to grow.

At ICTG, we often refer to that leadership activity as "adding good into the world." Over the years, we've noticed how easy it is to talk A LOT about the trouble in the world. But changing that trouble happens when we offer more goodness in response. ​