New initiative to form mental health professionals rooted in Church teaching

(OSV News) -- A new initiative by the University of Mary and the Diocese of Phoenix promises to respond to today's rising mental health challenges by forming mental health professionals who are clinically trained and rooted in the Catholic teaching on human dignity.

"The idea of mental health ministry is to reach out to those who may be struggling with mental health or those who have lost loved ones through suicide -- and let them know that they're loved and that they belong in the life of the Church," Bishop John P. Dolan of Phoenix, who has lost four family members to suicide, told OSV News.

Both Bishop Dolan and Msgr. James P. Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, spoke with OSV News about the initiative called the Photina Center for Catholic Counseling. Located in Phoenix, the center will provide select educational programs, professional development and community resources beginning this year.

As soon as this fall, the center will offer courses for the university's counseling master's degree program to diocesan employees. It will coordinate practicum and internship opportunities so students can experience hands-on learning in diocesan schools or with Catholic mental health practitioners. The center will also provide coursework for the university's Catholicanthropology for counselors graduate certificate.

In addition to academic programs, the center will offer professional development and resources for local Catholic mental health professionals, support the Diocese of Phoenix's Office of Mental Health Ministry and co-sponsor an annual conference on Catholic mental health ministry.

"One of the fundamental and primary and central needs in the wider culture is for mental health professionals," Msgr. Shea said. "Catholic higher education is the best place to prepare a caring, sensitive but also properly trained mental health professional working in schools or in charities or in private therapeutic practice."

Around 1 in 6 Americans say they have poor mental health, according to a poll released by National Alliance on Mental Illness in December. At the same time, a West Health-Gallup Healthcare survey conducted in November found that, for the first time, the percentage of U.S. adults who call their mental health "excellent" fell below 30%.

With the help of the center, Bishop Dolan said his diocese wants to place counselors in each of its grade school systems, among other things.

"The idea is that those who are going through the M.S. program will also act as interns in our grade schools to assist our children," he said.

Bishop Dolan said the diocese has been expanding its Office of Mental Health Ministry to include education, accompaniment and advocacy. He called the Photina project a culmination of all three.

"The ultimate goal is to accompany our children along the way in our Catholic school system," he said. "Then later on, if these counselors go off and establish their own practice, that's good for us because we are -- here in the county of Maricopa especially in the Phoenix Diocese -- we're way behind the eight ball when it comes to counselors and meeting the needs of the number of people here in this vast and ever-growing territory."

Msgr. Shea saw a need for the university to grow with its master of science degree in counseling filled to capacity. The university also saw the needs of the Diocese of Phoenix, the second largest Catholic diocese in the country by population.

"We've launched this program together in an effort to bring our academic program, our CACREP-accredited master of science in counseling, to the Diocese of Phoenix, where we hope to equip counselors -- both school counselors and mental health counselors -- for the schools of the Diocese of Phoenix and also for the charitable apostolates of the Diocese of Phoenix," Msgr. Shea said.

The University of Mary's master of science programs in clinical mental health counseling and school counseling are accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, or CACREP. The counseling program that will be offered through the center is currently seeking CACREP authorization.

Msgr. Shea said the center is part of a "growing and burgeoning relationship" between the university and the Diocese of Phoenix. He described how the University of Mary began providing Catholic higher education in the diocese in 2012 with the launch of Mary College at ASU -- a partnership between the University of Mary and Arizona State University.

That partnership also includes the diocese through the Catholic Newman Center at ASU, Msgr. Shea said.

More recently, the university's relationship with the diocese continued when Bishop Dolan asked the University of Mary to provide academic formation for the seminarians at the newly launched Nazareth Seminary in Phoenix, he said.

"Out of these collaborations which already existed, grew the idea that the University of Mary should expand our offerings in counseling at the graduate level ... to the Diocese of Phoenix," Msgr. Shea said.

The new center takes its name from St. Photina, the Samaritan woman who encounters Jesus Christ at Jacob's Well.

"Here's a woman who comes broken and full of shame -- hiding from others -- out to the well in the middle of the day," Msgr. Shea said. "She meets Jesus at that well, and, in one conversation, he teaches her about God's love for her, about right worship, about her own life and what her desires have meant. He fills her with courage and healing, and then she runs into the city to evangelize others."

"It's the most wonderful example of inner transformation," he added. "That's the very kind of healing we hope comes shining forth from the Photina Center for Catholic Counseling."