Uncle William did not look like a hero to me when I was a child. As I got older, I came to realize that this Iowa farmer had been one of hundreds of young men who served the nation during World War II by tending to people who previously had been treated as beneath “the […]
Why EMU Has a Heart for Mental Healthcare The first night at Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia, was horribly memorable. Emory Layman, assigned by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to work as an attendant at the mental hospital during World War II, was shown to a bed in a cramped office, just off the noisy […]
By Andrew Jenner ’04 Since the very beginning, the conviction that “there has to be a better way” has been a guiding principle for the Mennonite mental healthcare institutions that were established as a response to the experience of conscientious objectors (COs) during World War II. Mennonite mental healthcare institutions have demonstrated ingenuity and leadership […]
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Tagged Carl Rutt, Gerald Ressler, John Goshow, Lois Shank Gerber, Maria Martin Shisler, Nate Hoffer, Phil Weber, Tammy Eberly, Tim Derstine, Tom Martin, Vernon Kratz
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Not long after becoming executive director of the Good Samaritan Shelter in 2009, Nate Hoffer ’03 found himself sitting in the shelter living room in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, with a young homeless man in the middle of a severe paranoid delusion. Not knowing how to respond, Hoffer wondered exactly what he’d gotten himself into. “You can’t […]
The following are excerpts from “An Ethos of Faith and Mennonite Mental Health Services” by Aldred H. Neufeldt, professor emeritus of community rehabilitation and disability studies at the University of Calgary and past chair of Mennonite Mental Health Services. His article was originally published in the Journal of Mennonite Studies, (vol. 29, 2011, pages 187-202), […]
She once had a client with severe Alzheimer’s disease who had been an artist earlier in life. During his art therapy sessions with Martin Johnson, he would make large, colorful paintings, but after he left for the day, he’d forget what he had done. Every time he came back, Martin Johnson would show the man […]
At first, the Crossroads Pregnancy Center in Lewistown, Pa., turned Nelson Roth away. They didn’t have any male clients or need any male counselors. Roth, who had just retired with his wife to Belleville, Pa., after nearly 40 years as a teacher and pastor, left his contact information with the center. If the need arose, […]
Every inch of tabletop space in Dorcas Stoltzfus Morrow’s apartment is covered with loose papers and three-ring binders, spillover from the crammed bookshelves that surround her living room at Landis Homes in Lititz, Pa. One of the first women to complete a full pre-med program at EMC, Morrow enrolled in the fall of 1956 at […]
To be an effective counselor, says Emory Otto, “you really have to care about people, and really want to help people.” It’s something that he wanted to do since he’d been in elementary school, and it’s a career he pursued since majoring in psychology at EMC and earning his doctoral degree in 1983 from the […]
Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) emerged from the ashes of Sept. 11, when hundreds of millions of people were grieving over the deaths and destruction caused by hijacked airplanes flying into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. To mark STAR’s 10th anniversary, founding director Carolyn […]