Pastoral Care for Trauma Survivors

• Spiritual Healing Retreats for Combat Veterans with PTSD and their spouses. We most recently provided such a retreat at the invitation of the Canadian Forces to 20 recent veterans of Afghanistan.
  
  
• "Risking Connection for Fatih Communities: A Training Curriculum for Faith Leaders Supporting Trauma Survivors was written by a team from ICWVM and the Sidran Institute and published in February 2006. Sidran offers training for faith leaders based on the text.
  
  
• Our Clergy and Congregation Trauma Training Project expresses our desire to share our expereience with other clergy. Activities of this project have included:
  • 2002: A two-semester hour graduate level course, "Pastoral Care for Trauma Survivors" was taught at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington using a draft of the Risking Connection curriculum
  • 2006: An orientation to the new curriculum was given by one of the co-authors, Elizabeth Vermilyeae, at the October 2006 ICWVM Annual Meeting at Menlo Park, California.
  • 2008: A workshop entitled "Families and the Spiritual Wounds of War" is being presented at the Congregational Health Ministries Conference of the United Methodist Church, at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. The workshop will be repeated at the 2008 ICWVN Annual Meeting in Metairie, Louisiana.
  
  
  
• ICWVM member efforts includes a host of activities that have emerged in the areas our members work in response to specific needs. One is availability of ICWVM members to talk or correspond with veterans who seek them out. Another is articles, presentations and workshops on trauma. These include an article by Margie Nelson-Pechota, Ph. D., Spirituality and PTSD in Vietnam Combat Veterans, reflecting her research with Vietnam combat veterans while completing her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. This is one of several articles on Spirituality and Trauma.
  
  
• Congregation and Trauma Resource Links. As we use the internet, we have come across a number of sites helping congregations link with war veterans and other trauma survivors. In addition, we have identified a number of internet links specifically to PTSD.