Psychospiritual Care for Mental Wellness Pilot Training Course
Title of Project: Psychospiritual Care for Mental Wellness Pilot Training Course
Project Period: August-December 2025
Localities: Greater Richmond Region
Funding Source: seed funding from VTIPG residual
Principal Investigator (PI): Dr. Andrew Sharp
Key Community Partners: Dr. William McKenna, Piedmont Geriatric Hospital, Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services
Key University Partners: Dr. Hannah Bayne, Counselor Education Program, School of Education
Description of Project:
This project is a response to two of the most troubling trends in recent years: the alarming global rise in mental health illness and the erosion of trust in our societal institutions. It brings together behavioral health professionals and spiritual leaders in a cohort-based training experience to equip them for providing deeper healing and growth opportunities to those they serve, while increasing access for communities that are currently underserved. VTIPG faculty have conducted preliminary research and developed a curriculum that is being offered to a group of twenty-one professionals from August-December 2025.
The longer-term ambition is to expand the scope and duration of the project to replicate the training and community-engagement efforts in several other cities and/or regions across the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as to advance knowledge about the intersections of race, culture, religion, and science in our understanding of mental health conditions and their treatment across diverse communities, complex care systems, and institutions.
Project Goals:
- For participants to gain a trauma-informed, community based, spiritually integrated framework for mental wellness
- To build new tools to strengthen collaborations and partnerships between spiritual leaders and mental health professionals
- Testing, iterating, and adapting a baseline curriculum and hybrid modality for the pilot experience to use for a future multi-year research project
- To deepen our understanding of life affirming and potentially life limiting aspects of religion and spirituality on mental health.