Trauma Responses to COVID

Part of Strategies

By Sunshine Jeremiah Wolfe

It's important to understand that our faith communities have gone through a traumatic experience, and that is having an impact on our physical and mental functioning.

Things to Consider

  • Some of our people may have past trauma that is being triggered
  • It takes a lot more energy to do "normal" tasks
  • People's sense of time can be distorted
  • People have a harder time taking in information, so we need to communicate more often (think 4 times as often) and in as many different ways as possible
  • People are going to want to go back to the "old normal"
  • When we are back meeting in person and it isn't the "same," people will experience a kind of unraveling
  • People will be feeling tired, depressed and exhausted, including the leaders
  • It will take five to ten years for congregations to heal
  • Avoid a sense of urgency and take your time

About the Author

Sunshine Jeremiah Wolfe

Rev. Sunshine J. Wolfe is Congregational Field Staff for the Central East Region serving congregations in western Pennsylvania and across Ohio. Ghe hails originally from Indiana where ghe learned to sing, dance, and cause trouble- the social justice kind. Ghe is currently a member of TRUUsT...

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