World Mission Sunday

This World Mission Sunday (20th October), we want to shine a spotlight on the mental health challenges that all global workers serving in compassion-driven roles face and how we as an organisation have the knowledge and expertise to help and support them.  

Working and serving in cross-cultural environments can be hugely rewarding, but it can also present struggles and strains that are only felt and experienced by the workers and their families. These can include: 

  • Worries and concerns about their children. The concerns are often those that any parent encounters, such as schooling, friendships, mental health etc; however, the isolation from wider family, like-minded friends, and professionals who might help can amplify the difficulties. 

  • Marital strains. Again, the isolation from wider family, like-minded friends, and professionals who might help can amplify the difficulties. If the marriage is cross-cultural, this can add a further dimension. 

  • Difficulties with work/life balance. Given the fluid nature of mission work that rarely fits into a 9 to 5 day, mission workers can easily slip into draining and unhealthy patterns that leave little room for rest. This can lead to burnout. 

  • Missionaries and humanitarian workers can experience the same difficulties that the rest of the population do, such as depression, anxiety, OCD etc. 

  • Longer-serving workers can return to the UK and struggle with the social and cultural changes they see. This can lead to anger, stress, bewilderment, loss, and a sense that home is no longer there. 

  • Misunderstandings or disagreements with the sending agency. This can particularly be an issue for longer-serving missionaries and workers: society, culture and the economic situation in the UK is changing very fast, and this can lead to a mismatch in expectations. 

To support with the above, for good preparedness and when coping with other situations that are unique to each worker, we offer: 

  • Full or lite psychological assessments before the mission worker departs 

  • Personal reviews (debriefs) and mid-term psychological assessments 

  • Counselling or psychological therapy 

We provide high quality, industry-standard counselling and psychological therapy with the bonus of in-depth understanding and experience of the unique issues that global workers can bring. We understand the situation of the worker on the one hand, and the agency and home culture on the other hand. 

We can do all of this remotely. Almost all of what we do is delivered remotely via Teams or Zoom. We can be speaking to people in Iraq, Bolivia, Malawi or Cambodia, all in the same day and will try to accommodate different time zones.  

As an organisation, we have been doing this for a very long time! 

If you feel that you, your team or anyone you know would benefit from the tailored services we provide, please call us on 0131 653 6767 or email admin@healthlink360.org.  

 

Ruth Punna