Howard's Proposed Dissertation Project Design

San Francisco Theological Seminary
Dissertation Project Design

1. Title: Empowering Clergy as Crisis Counselors in Urban America

Author: Rev. Howard Dotson Advisor: Rev. Dr. Paul Hertig
Context: Rampart Div. of L.A.P.D. & the Eastern District of St Paul P.D.

2.Problem:

In the North American urban ministry context, gang violence is claiming the lives of far too many young people. In the City of Los Angeles there are forty thousand gang members; most of whom were baptized in Latino Catholic and African American Protestant congregations. In the Rampart Division of LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) it has become evident that many of these grieving families are not receiving immediate pastoral care following a gang related homicide. This is due in part to communication gaps between the Police and the faith communities, but there is also the stigma of being the bereaved parent of a child who is presumed to be a gang member. Like the LAPD, many police departments have clergy councils that could serve as referrals and first responders to provide emotional and spiritual support for these grieving families. Many of the clergy representatives on these councils, however do not have adequate crisis counseling training to serve in this capacity.

3. Purpose:
Improving the communication and response time between the Los Angeles Police Department and the volunteer clergy councils in Los Angeles, CA, where Rev. Dotson worked for 3 years. Such an arrangement of clergy councils will also be assessed with the St. Paul Police Department and the East Side of St. Paul, MN community where he has recently relocated. Rev. Dotson objective is to facilitate the ongoing training with LAPD Clergy Council members and assess the benefits of this model being replicated with the Eastern District of the St Paul Police Dept.
Another objective for this dissertation project is to increase the number of clergy who are equipped with the crisis counseling skills and training necessary to serve bereaved families traumatized by violence in their communities. With this continuing education training, an increased number of clergy will be more effective urban pastoral care providers. They will join a more comprehensive interdisciplinary system working to decrease the psychological and social barriers that hinder the traumatized and grieving families from gaining access to emotional and spiritual resources. These bereaved families need every resource available to them to enhance their coping skills, and thereby minimizing some of common psychological risk factors and vulnerabilities.

4. Scope:

Crisis counseling is a specialized form of pastoral care and counseling that centers around providing emotional and spiritual support to persons who experience a crisis due to a tramautic event that has overwhelmed one’s coping skills. Howard Stone and David Switzer have presented crisis counseling models that are readily applicable to the context of urban pastors providing pastoral care and counseling to bereaved families coping with emotional and spiritual stressors associated with a sudden and traumatic act of violence. The psychological literature demonstrates that there are some common yet unique psychological risk factors that bereaved families encounter as they cope with the loss of a loved one to violence.
In Rev. Dotson’s clinical and pastoral work, these families have frequently presented with vulnerabilities for developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Complicated Grief and an increased risk for suicidality. His master’s degree in psychology prior to seminary and ongoing training with the Dr. James Bugental’s Art of Psychotherapist Institute provides some unique clinical and theoretical insight into how clergy can be trained and equipped to provide pastoral care for grieving and bereaved families.
His clinical orientation as an Existential-Humanistic pastoral counselor specifically focuses on how a pastoral care provider assists someone with their ability to face the givens of their human existence and the existential crisis that this traumatic act of violence presents. One’s own mortality is front and center when one grieves the loss of a loved one. One of the coping resources that can be fostered in these crisis counseling sessions is an exploration of how the bereaved might discover meaning in the midst of their despair and feelings of emptiness. How will they define the legacy of their loved one? How might they invite others to join them in paying tribute to their loved one by working together to assure that another mother will not have to endure the tragedy they are facing ? In Rev. Dotson’s pastoral counseling experiences with dozens of bereaved families, this existential-humanistic coping mechanism has consistently proved effective.
This theological and social framework provides a mechanism for the community stakeholders to engage the families in ways that transcend the all too common condescending modes of sympathy. Many grieving families resent and repel being fussed over by people who have good intentions. The bereaved family members increasingly feel isolated as the well wishers quickly shift and go back to life as normal, while they remain in their grief and bereavement.
When the bereaved families see how the community has come together to memorialize the fallen through commitments to peacemaking and reconciliation, their coping resources will be strengthened. Together they find a common mission that enables them to engage these new friends and colleagues. Bereavement is for a life time. Clergy crisis counselors can help organize these community stakeholders as agents of meaning-making that envelope these bereaved families. This is a long term coping strategy that helps sustain the bereaved over the months and years following the loss of their loved one.

5. Method including data sources and research steps, and the implementation, evaluation, and testing of the project;

Over the past four years, Rev. Dotson has worked with the LAPD and the Mayor’s Crisis Response Team to provide pastoral care and counseling to dozens of grieving families following a gang related homicide in the West LA and Rampart Divisions. The City of Los Angeles and the City Attorney’s have presented him with several commendations for this work.
In his new context on the East side St Paul, the scale and scope of violent crimes is fractional compared to Los Angeles, but the community surrounding Arlington Hills Presbyterian Church (AHP) has the highest crime rate for the entire city. This is a diverse community predominantly comprised of impoverished African American, Latino and Asian at-risk-youth vulnerable to gang recruitment. When Rev. Dotson was hired by the AHP session as Interim minister, the session members endorsed his community outreach to the Police Dept and the ecumenical community.
Rev. Dotson presently serves as a volunteer chaplain with the St Paul Police Dept. Commander Martinez, the Senior Commander for the Eastern District of the St Paul Police Dept. has engaged him to serve as a resource and liaison with the growing Latino community in the district. As collaborative partners, they are actively confronting the stigmatization families experience after a gang-related-homicide. As an extension of the St Paul PD Chaplaincy unit, they partner to ensure that the grieving families receive the emotional and spiritual support they need to cope with the traumatic event and their grief and bereavement.
Over the past six months, five candle light vigils have been organized to provide emotional and spiritual support to the bereaved family members and the traumatized community members. This has been well received by the community stake holders in St Paul. Many residents feel powerless and overwhelmed. This liturgical ritual allows the community to come together and provide emotional and spiritual support to the families. After the clergy crisis counselor has provided this ritual, the family is more receptive to the clergy for a follow-up consultation that enables pastoral assessment, crisis counseling and possible referral to appropriate mental health professionals.
The candle light vigils are points of contact with the family members and friends to assess the level of emotional and spiritual resources available to them. If they are affiliated with a particular parish/congregation and have already connected with their primary pastoral care provider, then deference is afforded to this clergy person. More often then not, however, the family has yet to engage their pastor because the funeral is days off.
In the Los Angeles context, if there is a crisis counselor already working with the family, then the pastoral care provider defers to h/her and takes their lead on what the families’ presenting needs are. In the St Paul context, the chaplaincy unit provides the short term crisis counseling at the scene of the crime or at the hospital. Clergy in both contexts will be advised and trained on how to function appropriately within the duties and responsibilities assigned to the various agencies that have been organized to assist the crime victim’s families.

6. Representative Bibliography

Batestone, D. (1993) New Visions of the Americas: Religious Engagement and Social Transformation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press

Bodenhamer, D. (1998) Voices of Faith: Making a Difference in Urban Neighborhoods. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

*Bugental, JFT. (1965) The Search for Authenticity: An Existential-Analytic Approach to Psychotherapy. New York Holt Rhinehart & Winston

Corr,C. & Balk,D. (2004) Handbook of Adolescent Death and Bereavement. NY:Springer.

Claerbaut, D.( 2005) Urban Ministry in a New Millenium. London: Authentic Media.

Culbertson, P. (2000) Caring for God’s People: Counseling for Christian Wholeness.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Delgado,G. (1994) Beyond the Politics of Place: New Directions in Community Organizing in the 1990s. Oakland, CA: Applied Research Ctr.

Doyle, P. (1980) Grief Counseling and Sudden Death: A Manual and Guide. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas

Dolendorf, D. (1999) Post Traumatic Stress Disoder. Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine.

Guder & Barret. (1998) The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Vision for the
Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Lawrenz & Green (1996) Overcoming Grief and Trauma. Grand Rapids, MI. Fleming H. Revell.

*May, R. (1950) The Meaning of Anxiety. New York: WW Norton.

Humprhey, G & Zimpfer, D. (1996) Counseling for Grief and Bereavement. London: Sage.

Pattison, S. (1994) Liberation Theology and Pastoral Care. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Press.

Oates, W. (1997) Grief, Transition and Loss: A Pastor’s Practical Guide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Peters R. (2007) An Introduction to Urban Ministry. Nashville: Abingdon

Rogers-Fuller, D. (2002) Pastoral Care for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Philadelphia: Haworth Press.

Rosenthal & Mizrahi (1994) Strategic Partnerships: How to Create & Maintain Interorganizational Collaborations & Coalitions. New York: Hunter College School of Social Work

Schoenberg, B.M.(1980) Bereavement Counseling: A Multidisciplinary Handbook. Wesport, CT:Greenwood Press.

Shapiro, E. (1999) Grief as Family Process: The Circumstances of the Death and the Structure of Grief. Guilford, NY

Stone, B. (1996) Compassionate Ministry: Theological Foundations. New York:Orbis

*Stone, H (1993) Crisis Counseling. Rev. ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

*Stone, H (1994) Brief Pastoral Counseling. Minneapolis:Fortress Press.

Stone, H (2001) Brief Pastoral Counseling: Short Term Approaches and Strategies. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

* Switzer, D (1986) The Minister as Crisis Counselor. Minneapolis: Fortress Press:

* Switzer, D (2000) Pastoral Care Emergencies. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Van Gelder, C.(2007) The Ministry of the Missional Church. Grand Rapids, MI:Baker Books.

Wicks, Parsons & Capps (1993) Clinical Handbook of Pastoral Counseling. V. 1& 3 New York: Paulist Press.


7. Contributions which you expect the work to make to the practice of ministry in the contemporary world;

This training model of empowering clergy as crisis counselors will enhance an urban pastor’s ability to partner with local law enforcement personnel and city officials to confront the psychological and sociological barriers that hinder families from receiving critical emotional and spiritual resources. Urban pastors are called to be prophetic social change agents who confront some of the deleterious social patterns that too frequently blame the victims.
The bereaved families need the broader community to surround them with love, compassion and spiritual support. How will we make meaning out of this? How can we discover hope in the midst of this tragedy and despair? Finding a constructive answer to this pervasive existential question is a critical coping resource that helps decrease the bereaved person’s vulnerabilities for further psychological problems as they continue their difficult journey. Urban pastors serving as crisis counselors need to posses some specific knowledge and skills set to provide emotional and spiritual support to these bereaved families and to engage the proper referral mechanisms, when and if it is warranted.

8. The time schedule you expect to follow;

Feb 24 2009
• Clergy consultation with Rampart Clergy Council
• Compile course evaluations

April 2009
• Present findings to Commander Martinez and the St Paul Chaplaincy Unit
• Assess the feasibility of replicating this model
with St Paul clergy serving the Eastside of St Paul
• Arrange a clergy consultation with Latino clergy in
the Eastern District of St Paul PD to address the stigma and isolation that bereaved families frequently endure after a traumatic act of violence.

May 2009
Continued research, pastoral praxis and the production of the dissertation.