COVID-19 and Mental Health: Resources for care and advocacy

This is a list of resources for the ongoing crisis of the coronavirus pandemic. If you or someone you know is in a immediate personal crisis, please see the “For People in Crisis” section on the Resource page.

The public health situation related to the coronaviruses has created a challenging combination of anxiety and necessary-for-health isolation, both of which can be very hard on folks with mental health struggles.

I will attempt to keep this blog post updated with resources for care and advocacy during this time; if you have a resource to recommend, you can contact me.

An awesome coalition of mental health organizations has put together this website which aggregates resources, including a ton of different helplines, all in one place: covidmentalhealthsupport.org

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has released this helpful resource guide for mental healthcare during the coronavirus pandemic. I particularly appreciate that in addition to addressing anxiety and isolation, it names the particularly egregious reality in a time of pandemic that incarceration and homelessness replace a functioning mental health system for far too many people.

NAMI has also joined with a number of other organizations to advocate for mental health needs to be included in the next stimulus bill; a major need given the mental health crisis brewing under the current public health crisis. You can find those asks here, and you can also text “Sign CTJGUU” to 50409 to automatically add your name to a related petition to your members of Congress. (Also, the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Do with that information what you will.)

I really appreciated this episode from one of my favorite podcasts, CXMH: Christianity and Mental Health, titled “Navigating Uncertainty During the COVID-19 Crisis,” although it could have easily been called “How to get your body to listen to the Serenity Prayer.”

The CDC has this produced these resources for community- and faith-based leaders.

For folks worried about missing their normal 12-Step meetings, you can find online NA meetings here; online AA meetings here, AA meetings by phone here, and online AA meetings with ASL interpretation here (for the last one, note that times are in Pacific Time Zone).

Here’s a petition from the Poor People’s Campaign calling on Congress to protect the nation’s poor and to confront underlying causes of poverty during our response to this pandemic.

My friend and fellow Church Publishing author Peter Jarett Schell has shared some helpful tips for congregations suddenly worshiping online because of physical distancing precautions. On Sunday, I shared a sermon as part of the online worship service of the congregation where I am a member and my wife Leigh is the interim pastor.

My cousin Laura is a mircobiologist who specializes in things like coronaviruses at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and she just shared this helpful letter with our family about what her lab and her community are doing to help slow the spread.

Rev. Alan Johnson, the chair of the United Church of Christ’s Mental Health Network, offers these reflections and suggestions.

Here are some stress relief practices offered by a collection of interfaith and indigenous healing practitioners. Another source from an indigenous perspective addresses decolonizing community care during this crisis. And I was struck by both the story and the practical suggestions, at the intersection of mental health, mass incarceration, and isolation, of someone who has experienced solitary confinement.