Your health and safety is our highest priority. We want you to feel confident that you will be safe when you enter an Advocate Aurora Health site of care. The Advocate Aurora Safe Care promise provides additional measures to protect you and our team members.

Measures include virtual check-in, screening of those who enter, enhanced cleaning and more. See Safe Care Promise video and flyers in English and Spanish.

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time set aside to reduce stigma around the topic, share resources and raise awareness about actions we can all take to prevent suicide.

While addressing suicide prevention year-round remains important, you and your community can commemorate National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month by learning about more about suicide: its warning signs, how to support those at risk for suicide and how you can care for suicide loss survivors - friends and family members affected by the suicide loss of a loved one.

Feel free to share the bulletin insert and worship slide (below), with your faith community, as well as this special edition of Faith and Mental Health Quarterly (right), which includes suicide prevention resources, articles and first-person accounts from those personally impacted by suicide.

Advocate Children's Health Resource Centers offer the following resources for teens:

A resource about the topic of suicide in English and Spanish.

QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) is a suicide prevention course that teaches participants to help someone who may be considering suicide. Participants will learn how to recognize the warning signs of suicide, interact with a person who may be suicidal, and apply the three-step QPR approach to helping someone who may be considering suicide.

The 2020 Plous Family Lecture will focus on racial health disparities and COVID 19. Learn how raising awareness about how structural inequalities influence racial disparities brings diverse partners together to devise responses.

Keynote speaker, Rev. Dr. Patrick Smith,PhD., is Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics, Duke Divinity School; Senior Fellow,Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University; and Associate Faculty, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and the History of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine. He is a trusted scholar in the areas of bioethics, social ethics, Black Church studies, and philosophical theology. His work and service in bioethics and social ethics has spanned academic, professional, community, and ecclesial spaces.

Advocate Aurora Health is proud to support our communities and provide opportunities for community members to engage in healthy, fun activities that benefit us all — you and the overall wellness of our community.

Alzheimer’s Association Virtual Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

Register at www.alz.org/Illinois (search for Advocate)

American Heart Association Metro-Chicago Virtual Heart Walk.

Register at advocateheartwalk.com  

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer - Details coming soon!

Questions? Email Christine Rybicki, Manager, Community Relations

Session One: Sept. 16, 1:00 p.m.

Session Two: Sept. 23, 1:00 p.m

While some of the issues of our day seem beyond our healing/helping touch, there is one issue in which a few commonsense steps can have lasting impact on our families, neighborhoods and communities: human trafficking. By participating in this webinar series, you will become more aware of what trafficking can look like in your area, access tools to guard your loved ones, and be part of bringing hope and healing to those trafficked.

Support Teams are groups of volunteers who come together to provide practical, emotional, and sometimes spiritual support to people in need of extra care.

During this two-hour online workshop you will discover what makes teams work and successful, participate in simulations on ways to offer practical, emotional and spiritual support, and more.

Download a flyer to share.

See flyer.

You can improve health, breathe easier and save money when you overcome nicotine dependence. Learn how by attending Freshstart, a free four-week virtual smoking cessation program. Please note: all participants are encouraged to attend all four sessions.

To register, contact Laurie Dlouhy, RN

Tuesdays from 8:30-9:00 a.m.

The Prayer Support Line allows us to come together in unity to release our burdens, receive comfort and express our gratitude to God for holding us close during this pandemic. The Prayer Support Line is a place where we can join with others in prayer for health, healing and spiritual care with the expectation that God will meet us and provide us with encouragement.

The effects of grief and loss interrupt meaningful connections in our lives. This path can lead to broken hearts, painful detachments and unmet desires. These sessions will offer tools of reconstruction. We will learn how to embrace various feelings associated with loss with courage and anticipation toward wholeness. See flyer.

The Healing Shofar is a workshop for bereaved people anticipating the major Jewish Fall Holidays after the death of a loved one. Please join us for information on the grief process, strategies for coping with loss on the Holidays, some reflective Torah texts on the Days of Awe, ways to memorialize your loved one, ideas to help you move forward at this Yomtov Season, and special support during this era of Covid-19.

Facilitated by Rabbi Joe Ozarowski, D. Min., BCC, Rabbinic Counselor and Chaplain, and Marsha Raynes, LCSW, Coordinator and Clinical Educator of JCFS Chicago.

Presented by the Faith Community Nursing and Health Ministries Network. This webinar will describe how social determinants impact health and health outcomes and how one's own faith and individually lived experiences might influence one's perception of social determinants of health

Register by Sept. 4 by emailing Madelyn Humbert at mhumber1@hfhs.org or Janet Banks-McElrath at jmcelra1@hfhs.org.

Madison Christian Community is pleased to announce an important training, Keeping Faith: Empowering Faith Communities to Recognize and Respond to Child Abuse, on September 21. This interfaith training is co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Conference United Church of Christ and endorsed by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation is providing opportunities for the greater Chicago community to confront racism and heal from the traumas of racism by participating in racial healing circles.

The racial healing circle experience relies on intentional listening and opening your heart space to unearth truths and conscious and unconscious biases. Participants can raise their awareness, consciousness, compassion, and empathy for others through the process. It’s a tool that can facilitate trust and build authentic relationships among participants and help bridge divides created by real and perceived differences.

The spread of COVID-19 is a rapidly evolving situation. Continue to check the CDC website for up-to-date information and guidance.

See A list of COVID-19 resources specifically for faith communities, including information on safely reopening, live-stream worship services, prayers and more.

The Advocate Aurora Health COVID-19 Resource Center in English and Spanish provides the most up-to-date information, tools and resources, including the policies for visiting patients in our hospitals, a COVID-19 Symptom Checker, CDC resources, ways you can donate, volunteer and help—and more.

The COVID-19 hotline at 1-866-4-HEALTH is staffed by clinicians who can answer questions about symptoms and determine the next steps in care.

The LiveWell app offers virtual appointments and virtual visits with physicians 24-hours a day.

Show Love. Stay Home.

How to Safely Dine at a Restaurant English version

How to Stay Safe at Gatherings and Cookouts English version

How to Protect Yourself and Others While Traveling in English

How to be Safe at Home in Spanish

Phase 4 Reminders English version and Spanish version

Mask Educational Flyer in English and Spanish

Correct and Incorrect Ways to Wear a Mask in Spanish.

How to Prevent Foggy Glasses While Safely Masking in English

What Activities are the Safest? in English and Spanish

For Your Health Shopping List in English and Spanish

The Power of Social Distancing Flyer: English version and Spanish version

COVID-19 Symptom Checker Information English version and Spanish version

COVID-19 Handout English version and Spanish version

COVID-19 Handout #2 English version and Spanish version

Learn the Difference Between Coronavirus, Flu and Allergies English version and Spanish version

A COVID-19 resource in Spanish that shares important tips to stay safe, flyers you can share with your community, links to the Advocate Aurora Health COVID-19 Resource Center and more.

A resource on safely preparing and sharing food includes information on how to avoid food or food packaging contamination and how to deliver food safely.

By Erica Noonan, social media specialist for Advocate Aurora Health

COVID-19 is stressful. From concerns over health to being cooped up at home, it’s normal to feel some anxiety during this tumultuous time. How can you make your mental health a priority?

Try following these 5 mental health practices to help make each day a little easier:

Self-isolating with children? Dr. Munther Barakat, Director of Behavioral Health Therapy at Aurora Psychiatric Hospital in Wauwatosa, WI, offers this advice for parents, “Maintaining a schedule during the day is helpful for children. It creates a sense of safety that comes with predictability. Some parents have posted a schedule in the house to provide a visual for the day.”

Want a reliable way to stay up to date on the COVID-19 outbreak and tips on how to protect you and your family while safe at home? Check out this resource center.

If you think you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 or are experiencing fever, cough or shortness of breath, start with our COVID-19 Symptom Checker or call 866-443-2584. Our symptom checker is the quickest way to find out what to do next.

Advocate Aurora Health Faith and Mental Health Quarterly provides updates on mental health resources, events and news to support the well-being of people in your congregation and community.

If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please contact Cindy Novak.

Up to 80 percent of strokes are preventable, and many of the risk factors are controllable. Take Advocate Aurora Health’s online Stroke Risk Assessment to estimate your chance of experiencing one and learn about the ways you could minimize it.

Learn more about the Healthy HotSpot Initiative, led by the Cook County Department of Public Health in collaboration with many partners to build healthy places in suburban Cook County.

Learn how to develop a health ministry in your faith community. If you are interested in starting a health ministry or health council in your congregation, contact Kirsten Peachey, Director of Faith and Health Partnerships for Advocate Aurora Health. She'd love to talk with you about getting started.

See a list of practical tools and resources on many different health topics.

To get daily articles on a host of health topics that come to you via email, subscribe to our Health eNews service. 

All Advocate Aurora Hospitals offer classes on health topics. See Illinois classes or events.  Select a Hospital/Medical Center and click on search to see what is being offered in your area.

Sept. 1: Pitru Paksha starts - Hinduism

Sept. 13-14: Exultation of the Holy Cross– Christianity

Sept. 16: Vishwakarma Puja – Hinduism

Sept. 17: Mahalaya Amavasya - Hinduism

Sept. 18-20: Rosh HaShana – Judaism

Sept. 21: Fast of Gedaliah - Judaism

Sept. 27-28: Yom Kippur – Judaism

Sept. 29: Michael and All Angels Day - Christianity

We hope you find this update helpful as you promote the health of your members and community. Please contact Cindy Novak if you have topics you'd like us to address or if you have questions or concerns.

Faith and Health Partnerships | AdvocateAuroraHealth