Shalem is pleased to launch a brand new website! Our previous website served us well but was several years old and was not “responsive”, meaning that it did not show well on hand-held devices and tablets. In today’s environment, having a “responsive” website is critical.

For upwards of a year, we worked with our long-time designer, Crew Marketing Partners (formerly called Riordon Design), to create a new look with new website features. All of that work has now come together. We are thrilled with the new look, the new presentation, and the visual beauty of the site, and we would love to get your feedback.

Let me describe some of the new features being launched. Shalem’s niche in the mental health world is to develop new, innovative partnerships with communities. The new website now feature suites of services tailored for specific communities, designed to give specific communities a comprehensive spectrum of supports for the relational and mental health within them. There are suites of tools geared specifically for faith communities, workplaces, schools and neighbourhoods. Check them out here.

In addition, it is now possible to register online, through the website, for conferences and workshops that Shalem puts on. As an example, interested social workers, foster parents and adoptive parents can register for the Fall, 2018 “Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy” conference referenced in the “Exciting Growth in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy” article found in this issue of the Networker.

But I have saved possibly the best for last. With the launch of the website, Shalem is also launching a brand new “Shalem Centre of Excellence and Learning in Community-Based Mental Health”.

Why a new Centre? What is its purpose, and what will it do?

Developing a new, different, integrated relationship between professionals and communities is Shalem’s niche. It’s what makes us unique. It’s proving to be extraordinarily fertile, garnering the generous partnerships of some of the best professionals in the mental health field and of many, many vibrant communities. And it is having a real impact on people’s lives.

In fact, it is having such an impact that the Shalem Board has embraced the creation of a new Centre. Its vision is to understand, develop, learn and share best practices in community-based mental health, rooted in the integration of the community and professional sectors—and through this to develop new, better, contemporary, responsive ministries, within our resources. All of Shalem’s program evaluation activities, publications, community workshops and professional trainings will be housed at the Centre and delivered through the Centre. We aim to understand our impact better, to improve it, to explore the linkage between the theories undergirding our practice, to share our learning, to learn from others, and to exercise influence in the mental health field. Above all, we seek to grasp, at better and deeper levels, what it means to be human, as relational and faith-filled creatures, in relation to our Creator, our Redeemer, and one another.

Watch for ongoing developments at the Centre over the next number of months.

How exciting! It is exciting to be part of this vision. And thank you for your part in it—your support through prayer, donations, volunteering, and conversations with others. Do explore the new website. We’d love to hear your feedback!

Mark Vander Vennen, MA, M.Ed, R.S.W. is Executive Director of the Shalem Mental Health Network