The Casserole Bite – Nebraska Faith Partners News
May 4, 2023
Welcome to The Casserole Bite. A news brief from Faith Partners Nebraska. Faith Partners’ purpose is to grow capacity in faith communities to respond with grace to alcohol, drug and behavioral health challenges. We focus on helping faith communities develop a team approach to prevention and recovery.
At our initial training, Drew Brooks, National Director of Faith Partners announced, “We want alcohol, drug and mental health issues to be casserole diseases,” we were a little puzzled, to say the least. He explained, “Traditionally, if someone is hospitalized for a period, people in a congregation bring casseroles to their family.” Physical diseases carry no shame or stigma. It is easy for families to be open about them and for congregation members to support them by various kindnesses, like bringing casseroles. So also, we want substance use disorders and mental health challenges to have no shame or stigma; to be treated like other “casserole diseases” in our congregations.
To help support you in making these issues casserole diseases, we offer this very short newsletter. Each issue covers just a bite of a casserole with one short article. Perhaps, it will have news about what some teams are doing, an idea that can help you, information about a book or article, and probably a little humor too.
We hope you’ll enjoy these Casserole Bites and that you’ll find them useful in your service and ministry. Click on the issue number below to read more.