Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement

An article on important research by Dr. Glen  Milstein, who I just took an amazing class with at the City College. Dr. Milstein also co-authored with Dr. Osman Ali and Dr. Peter Mazruk, a paper on "The Imam's Role in Meeting the Counseling Needs of Muslim Communities in the United States"

C.O.P.E. stands for Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement

The key to the C.O.P.E. model is the recognition that mental illness is a chronic disease with which patients sometimes can function and other times can not, Professor Milstein explains. “Clinicians and clergy perform distinct, complementary functions in treating these syndromes. While clinicians provide professional treatment to relieve individuals of their pain and suffering and move them from dysfunction to their highest level of function, clergy and religious communities provide a sense of context, support and community before, during and after treatment.”

The program aims to improve care of individuals by facilitating reciprocal collaboration between clinicians and members of the clergy, regardless of either’s religious affiliations. It is based on two principal ideas: The first is that clergy and clinicians can better help a broader array of persons with emotional difficulties and disorders through professional collaboration than they can by working alone, and secondly, that the program’s success is predicated on collaboration easing the workload for both groups.

read the complete article here