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New Global Center for Mental Health, Addiction, and Recovery takes aim at widespread crisis

November 15, 2021

With the goal of creating an educational epicenter on its campus for the combining of faith and worldwide advancement in mental health care, Liberty University launched the Global Center for Mental Health, Addiction, and Recovery this fall.

The center is the first of its kind for the university, drawing together academic departments and multiple campus resources to advance research and provide education, training, advocacy, and services to help deal with the massive mental health and addiction crisis in the church and global community.

Dr. Tim Clinton serves as executive director. He is the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors and serves as co-host of “Family Talk” with Dr. James Dobson. For over 30 years, he has served in academic administration and as a professor of counseling and pastoral care at Liberty. 

To Clinton, mental health is an overarching issue, and providers of this care are in high demand. 

“Tell me where doesn’t mental health touch? The family, the workplace, what we look at all around the globe,” he said. “With that, you realize that there really is a huge need for providers. One of the big pieces that we do here at Liberty is train mental health leaders to step into this moment and help lead the way with a voice of reason, clinical excellence, and a faith that transcends hopelessness.”

The new center is launching at a particularly relevant time, he said: “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States was already in the midst of a massive mental health crisis. Issues like depression, stress and anxiety, abuse, personality and obsessive-compulsive disorders, addiction, and others had caused a surge of hopelessness in our culture, and now the current pandemic and its related societal and relational issues have only taken it a step further.” 

“The American people are exhausted, running on empty, and emotionally shot,” Clinton added. “The brokenness is profound. Not bringing help and hope to them in these issues — that’s the mistake. Crisis is the moment when we (the Church) should be there.”

The center’s highly qualified board of advisors comprises leading pastors, psychiatrists, counselors, and other experts in the field.

Dr. Ron Hawkins, a longtime counseling professional and Liberty administrator, has helped to launch the center. He said there is significance in a mental health initiative with such a large scope being birthed in an academic institution to solve real-world problems. Liberty is taking on the challenge, looking at many different facets, he said, from “the science of addiction, the science of mental health, and the whole legal issue of policies that are being changed and addressed as we speak.”

“We’ve never had something that is this comprehensive to address such an important issue, and out of it we look for a path forward,” Hawkins added. “We are looking for a way to intelligently, responsibly, and, speaking from a faith position and biblical worldview, address solutions.”

Faculty, staff, and students from across Liberty’s residential and online programs will also be served through the center’s work.  

Visit Liberty.edu/Mental-Health to learn more.

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