Provider Resources
Farmers, farmworkers, fishermen, loggers, and their families face unique stressors that can impact mental health and well-being. Factors such as weather, commodity prices, labor shortages, injury, chronic health conditions, family business dynamics, and the unpredictable nature of agricultural work can create challenges that differ from those experienced by many other populations. While most behavioral health professionals receive little formal training in agricultural communities, understanding the culture, values, and realities of rural and agricultural life can strengthen therapeutic relationships and improve client outcomes.
If you are a mental health provider interested in learning more, participating in agricultural behavioral health training, or partnering with the NC Agromedicine Institute, we would love to connect with you. Please contact the NC Agromedicine Institute at 252-744-1008 or email agromedicine@ecu.edu.
Continuing Education and Training
Agricultural Behavioral Healthcare for Family Farm Systems
Fees: $0
Contact Hours: 1.00
This online course will discuss the behavioral health needs unique to individuals living and working on family farms and offer behavioral healthcare providers insight into effective intervention services. It will use a systems perspective as an organizing conceptual framework for understanding the material. This perspective will highlight the multiple stress levels at play in farm culture. The information provided comes primarily from published research; however, we have also included relevant information from professional experiences working with family farms in North Carolina.
Agricultural Behavioral Healthcare for Family Farm Systems – The Farmworkers
Fees: $0
Contact Hours: 1.00
This online course will discuss the behavioral health needs unique to migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFWs) working on family farms and offer behavioral healthcare providers insight for effective intervention services. This course will use a systems perspective as an organizing conceptual framework for understanding the material.
Death, Loss, & Grief on a Farm: Understanding Grief in Context
Fees: $0
Contact Hours: 0.50
This course will explore the topics of death, loss, and associated grief within the context of the family farm. We consider the subject from a variety of perspectives using a systems theoretical approach. A systemic approach enables us to consider not only the impact of loss from individual and shared perspectives, accounting for culture and context, but also to examine the impact of loss on the farm as a functional unit. As changes occur in one part of a system, changes for others will be generated. Using a systems approach allows us a broader perspective of death than is possible with other theories, which typically focus on death as a process within the individual. This training is not comprehensive; instead, we will discuss the grief literature through its application to the agricultural community.