Patrick Regan OBE, president and co-founder of Kintsugi HOPE and founder of Brighter Days, and Dr Keith Foster, director of the Contemporary Chaplaincy programme at Waverley Abbey College, discuss how spiritual health contributes to mental wellbeing. The discussion was moderated by Dr Brian Grim, founding president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, with Jag Jethwa (SSE) and David Law (Thames Water). This is an installment of the monthly UK Faith@Work network virtual gathering.
Download Brian Grim’s PowerPoint introduction with statistics from McKinsey & Co. and video from Tyson Foods.
Summary of discussion by Melissa Grim:
Patrick Reagan discusses the charity Kintsugi HOPE he and his wife co-founded. Kintsugi is a Japanese term that means golden joinery, where gold is added to the glue used to mend broken dishware. So, an object becomes more beautiful through its cracks and breaks, in fact, becoming unique – one of a kind.
Through Kintsugi HOPE, churches and schools were trained to run wellbeing groups, a 12-Step Program loosely based on Alcoholics Anonymous, addressing an individual’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. These wellbeing groups look at some of the biggest issues of our time and have been adapted to fit different learning styles.
Covid hit during the charity’s first a pilot program however, the charity actually grew by 455%. Current outreach has impacted over 10,000 people through conceived groups run by over 400 churches with 1,500 faith leaders. Despite all these incredible successes, Patrick was praying for guidance on how to bring these benefits to the workplace.
Looking at his hundreds of books he realized he didn’t have something he could offer a non-Christian friend for reading as it pertained to their faith and the workplace. He challenged himself to write a book outside of the Christian bubble with more accessible language and style for readers of all faiths. With this in mind, and informed by times of great personal struggle, he published: Brighter Days, 12-steps to strengthen your wellbeing.
In the UK, mental health is the biggest reason for missed work. 17 million working days are missed a year with an estimated loss of £119 billion to the UK economy. Approximately 45.8 million adults struggle with their mental health, where 61% of these adults do not access any treatment (and only 10% of employees do so) – 9 out of 10 people in the UK with mental health conditions report that stigma and discrimination have negatively impacted their lives.
The book comes with a devised 4-step program which has been accredited by the (CPD) Continuous Professional Development, offering a CPD certificate upon completion. This has created amazing opportunities to bring the wellbeing program to the workplace, where Brighter Days, now a company, offers employees tools and techniques to utilize for better mental health alongside spiritual health.
Patrick is excited to hear from any interested persons and is excited that people are starting to see the workplace as a place to bring their faith!
Dr. Keith Foster worked in the corporate industry until about 40 years old, at Senior Level, and most senior people he worked with weren’t going to come to church anytime soon. Maybe church was for “poor people” or “people that were struggling in life” or whatever it might be. In fact, he did a doctoral thesis on “whatever happened to the rich young man.”
Dr. Foster states, “I ended up at Waverley [Abbey] because I believe we need people who are the presence of God in the workplace. And I think lot of people do this and they don’t realize they are that.” In fact, many people who take our 30-session Contemporary Chaplaincy course online, relay afterwards that the course provides a language and framework for work they were already involved in/drawn to.
Citing the paper “Has Theology Anything to Say to the Secular Academy, Or is it Really So Useless?” as an example of scientific suspicion of theology, Dr. Foster argues that “absolutely It has.” And there’s kind of suspicions on both sides, even in the theological camp – e.g. do we want to mix ourselves in those arenas? And, what’s really exciting is the research that Brian has drawn attention to, shows that absolutely spirituality belongs in this arena.
Dr. Foster argues that as we understand people, in an extra dimension, not just as physical or emotional beings, but actual spiritual beings, it gives us an understanding of what motivates them – what motivates their decisions. In increasingly multicultural society, having chaplains that understand this, and companies who employ them, makes business sense. For instance, the understanding of God or suffering varies between different religious faiths, and therefore employees’ reactions to loss or grief may vary.
A further 6-session Chaplaincy Volunteering course Dr. Foster developed looks at these issues as well. The course was developed in part to reward/recognize the vast number of volunteers and organizations who support chaplains in all that they do.
Workplace chaplaincy is on the move, it’s on the rise. Most people spend most of their time in the work place, and they need people who are willing, visible and available, to say “I am here to listen.” Chaplains are in the unique position to help employees before they struggles go from personal to requiring corporate response.
Question from Brian Grim: You’ve both alluded to how you both come from Christian backgrounds, but you’re seeing more how this applies to other faiths. Any last comments on what your journey has been bridging to people of other faiths and any principles you might want to share along those lines.
Patrick: There is so much common ground among faith groups, especially with regards to wellbeing and mental health. It is something that affects all of us, and yet there is still stigma attached to it.
Within the Christian faith in the UK an estimated 90% of Church leaders have never had any training in mental health. They are good at Latin, Greek and Hebrew, but not recognizing certain wellbeing issues.
The Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets has a very strong Muslim community – with community members suffering from depression and anxiety, yet stigma is often what prevents them from getting help.
The other common thread is the idea that if you struggle with your mental or spiritual or physical health that on some level you have failed God, or that you haven’t prayed enough, or that you have some sort of hidden sin.
So, where we’ve seen really effective work between faith groups is where we’ve come together and really tried to challenge the stigma associated with seeking mental health care and challenge the perception that asking for help is a sign of weakness, or denial of God’s existence in our lives.