Global Conference on Women's Mental Health

The General Conference Global Health and Lifestyle Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, brought together representatives from World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization and more than 600 leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church July 6-11, 2009.

GC Women's Ministries held a workshop during the conference on the topic "Women's Health Issues: Optimal Mental and Emotional Health." By the final day there were over 80 persons in attendance. The presenters were Katia Reinert, RN, MSN, FNP, FCN, a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist; Vicki Griffin, MPA, MACN (Research Director, author); Candace Huber, MPH, BSN, RN, FCN (Director at Florida Hospital); Heather-Dawn Small, GCWM director, and Raquel Arrais, GCWM Associate director.

On Friday, the Women's Ministries Department met with representatives from each division who were attending the conference. Small opened the presentation on the issue of women's mental health, the church's response, and the reason for research. Reinert presented the research and explained what was in the report. To close, Arrais shared how the church can use this information and the need for departments to work together to educate church members and to assist those in need.

Small encouraged each Women's Ministries division director to partner with their division HM director to ensure that this material reaches WM leaders at all levels and that plans are made to help members address the issue of Mental Health.

"Many of the diseases from which men suffer are the result of mental depression. Grief, Anxiety, Discontent, Remorse, guilt, distrust, all tend to break down the life forces and to invite decay and death." E.G. White, Ministry of Healing, p 241