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P.H.: What need in the faith community is the McFarland Institute trying to address?

Huffstutler: Mcfarland’s mission is to promote the spiritual dimension of the healing process. We believe that the traditional Judeo-Christian view of man—as a compilation of mind, body, and spirit—requires a holistic approach to health and healing. What affects the body inevitably affects the mind and spirit and vice versa. This is why our work is so important.

In recent years, though, we’ve been focusing on parish nursing. The concept of parish nursing grew out of work done by a hospital chaplain during the sixties who noticed what an important role nurses play in a patient’s spiritual recovery. In most of the country, when you talk about parish nursing, you’re talking about a paid medical worker who provides medical education and pastoral care for a specific congregation. Parish nurses don’t perform invasive procedures like regular nurses do. The thought is that if you promote health and wellness you’re preventing emergency room visits. Parish nursing is really a form of preventive care.

P.H.: How does parish nursing work in New Orleans?

Huffstutler: What we’ve done down here is a bit different because New Orleans is a bit different. Prior to the storm, New Orleans had a huge number of small churches—about 1500 in total, 80% of which had congregations of 200 or smaller. About 60% of these churches were African-American, many of them located in underserved areas far away from hospitals and doctors’ offices.

Back in ’96 we got a demonstration grant to start a pilot program with four churches to use nurses. The only churches that were interested were black churches, and there was enough interest among congregants that we were able to develop a volunteer model. We found there were a lot of nurses who wanted to help out their congregation in a hands-on way, even after working a forty hour week. Before the storm, we had 150 trained nurses serving in ninety-six congregations. These women (about 90% are female) are dedicated; they have a calling. We’ve had nurses serving for ten years, which is unheard of for volunteers.

What McFarland does is provide consultants and staff to help churches set up a wellness program. We assess the specific needs of the congregation when setting up our programs. For instance, if a church has a lot of parishioners with high blood-pressure, we run programs teaching people how to cook with less salt, and spread information about how diet affects blood-pressure.

P.H.: How has Hurricane Katrina affected your work?

Huffstutler: These days, we’re trying to ascertain how many of the 1,500 churches are still here. My best guess is that many of them did not survive. So we’re still trying to rebuild what we had. Certainly, after Katrina, it’s a whole different ball-game and the city changes every week. We’ve definitely been doing more groupwork and more mental health work in the wake of the hurricane.