Advancing the Global Reach and Impact of Mental Health Training Programs in Spiritual and Religious Competencies

Lack of professional training for addressing peoples’ spirituality and/or religion (S/R) in clinical practice arguably represents the most pressing and rectifiable cause of spiritually avoidant mental health care around the globe. Building on successes with catalyzing training in the U.S., this grant will generate the necessary relationships, knowledge, and resources for planning a multi-pronged approach to increasing the reach and downstream impacts of Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH), Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential, and Intensive Treatment (SPIRIT), and other strategies for training clinicians in the international community to effectively and ethically attend to their clients’ S/R. Specifically, in collaboration with cultural advisory teams from 12-16 countries, we will: (1) assess the feasibility of adapting the training programs for different countries and identify needed modifications for each setting/locale; (2) deepen our existing international collaborations and cultivate reciprocally beneficial partnerships with other mental health leaders; (3) understand the current status, barriers, and opportunities for S/R competence training beyond the U.S.; (4) identify and adapt outcome measures that could be widely implemented in a global dissemination project to assess clinicians’ spiritual and religious competencies; (5) assess the value/feasibility of adding a another strategic initiative for advancing S/R competence training globally and plan accordingly (if indicated); (6) finalize the larger plan and write the full proposal for the global dissemination project. By achieving these short-term aims, we will also take vital steps toward a long-term goal of enhancing human flourishing via increasing numbers of clinicians in the global behavioral health workforce with foundational attitudes, knowledge, and skills for honoring the spiritual and religious dimensions of many peoples’ lives throughout the world.