Church leaders and members in the Africa West Area of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are embracing principles of self reliance, mental health and emotional resilience, thanks to more open conversations around these topics and trainings from Family Services.
Church leaders created Family Services to be a resource for local leaders responding to the social and emotional needs of members.
Tamara Esi Dadson, a Family Services agency manager in the area, often travels throughout West Africa to help Church leaders understand the emotional health needs of the members they serve. She also helps these leaders access mental health resources to support themselves and their wards and stakes. The Africa West Area includes 17 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Western Sahara.
Dadson said she feels the Lord needs her to do this work. But when she first started working for Family Services, she faced challenges with people not understanding what mental health meant — as many people thought it was only for those experiencing mental illness.
“Nobody wanted to be associated with anything [about] mental health,” she said.
But these attitudes have been changing as people have come to trainings offered by Family Services and talked more openly about mental health, according to Dadson.
During one recent trip to a rural town, Dadson said she visited a local ward and was shocked when a ward leader opened the Gospel Library app and pointed members to the Life Help section. This section includes guidance for many of life’s challenges ranging from abuse and addiction to dealing with grief and unemployment. It also has a large section devoted to mental health.
That experience showed Dadson that this work is not only important to her, but it’s important to the Lord.
“And that’s how I saw it from then,” she said. “The Lord needs me, and He will let me know in which capacity.”
Dadson said she is also seeing many members of the Church get the help they need as their leaders have embraced the principles Dadson and other Family Services employees are teaching.
“Members feel like ‘I don‘t have to hide. I can go to my leader and talk to him, because he talks about it in sacrament meeting.’”
Seeing this change in attitudes — especially around mental health — has been a humbling experience, according to Dadson.
“It’s such a humbling experience that they recognize the need to understand their members emotionally, themselves emotionally and their families emotionally,” she said.
Another recent experience showed Dadson how the Lord is helping the people in the Africa West Area.
She was assigned to travel to Nigeria and lead training on mental resilience. This was the first time she had returned to the country since her parents served as mission leaders in the area when she was a little girl.
“Going back there was a beautiful experience,” she said. “I didn‘t expect to have the overwhelming feelings that I got.”
Dadson said she was able to connect with people who joined the Church because of her parents’ service.
Unforeseen circumstances forced the training to move to a Monday when most people were working, but when Dadson walked into the meetinghouse, she found it packed with people excited to learn what she could teach them. She said this wasn‘t because of who she was — but because the people trusted that if the Church was offering something, they knew it would bless their lives.
“It centered me,” Dadson said. “It’s not by my might, it’s not even by my knowledge. This is the Lord’s work. and He takes you where He needs you.”
Church resources
The Church provides counseling resources to help leaders support members on a wide range of emotional and social issues. Additional resources for emotional health for members include the following: