Healing the Healers

Filmmaker Kirsten Kelly’s five-part series looks at how religious leaders respond to their traumatized congregations when tragedy strikes their communities, as well as ways they deal with their own emotional turmoil. The first episode introduces Rev. Matt Crebbin of the Congregational Church of Newtown, CT, where Sandy Hook Elementary School was the site of the mass shooting that took the lives of students and teachers on December 14, 2012. Crebbin brings together his fellow local faith leaders to discuss how they dealt with their own and their parishioners’ spiritual needs in its wake. In the second part, Crebbin travels to St. Louis to interview Kathie Adams-Shepherd, who had been pastor at the Newtown Episcopal Church at the time of the shooting, to learn how she handles the lingering effects in her new posting. The third segment turns to communities that face continuous trauma, focusing on Hartford, CT, where Pastor Samuel Saylor, Jr. of Gardner Memorial AME Zion Church must find a positive way to confront an epidemic of violence that has also claimed his own son. In the fourth episode, Cribben interviews Fr. Basil O’Sullivan of Dunblane, Scotland, where an elementary school shooting occurred in 1996, in order to understand how a community deals with the lingering impact of a tragedy that occurred decades ago. The final segment profiles Cantor Michael Shochet of Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, VA, a former police officer who now serves as the police chaplain for Fairfax County. Healing the Healers seems primarily designed as an educational tool for clergy, but should still be considered a strong optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)