This past week, while attending Missio Nexus, we were able to take in a workshop by Laura Mae Gardner, author of “Healthy, Resilient and Effective”

https://www.condeopress.com/products/healthy-resilient-and-effective

and Brent Lindquist, CEO of LinkCare

http://www.linkcare.org/staff/brent-lindquist/

Dr. Lindquist clearly explained that there were both legal and moral implications AGAINST using psychological screening, even though he pointed out that member care practitioners and counselors (like Laura and Brent) were some of the very outspoken proponents for this practice even 20 years ago. Bottom line: According to these experts, organizations using psychological screening as a part of the application process should take steps immediately to a) redefine what they want the testing to accomplish and, more than likely, b) stop the practice immediately. Brent even went so far as to apologize for introducing the term, “Member care.” He went on to explain that the term has become so broadly applied, yet so often misunderstood. The best he could do was recommend we start saying, “Missionary health.” But either way, he said more often than not, people were thinking of member care people as counselors. He would RATHER the definition be much bigger than that. He urged organizations to redefine what they meant by “member care” — and suggested that the definition focus around the kind of care that everyone in the organization could show to everyone else. He said there was still a place for professionals, but held that member care can’t be delegated to a single department.