Opening up Chaplaincy: an invitation to question and innovate

Martin McGonigle returns as a guest on what is our 50th episode and inspires us with his descriptions of the new community role he has initiated at the Dougie Mac Hospice. Their SPARC team is actively guided in their ambitions, and assisted in their monitoring, by a steering group which helps to drive equality and education through the hospice. Education of clinical staff enables them to have confidence in spiritual assessments and in differentiating care through cultural competence, sharing the responsibility for meeting SPARC needs. A very collaborative approach.

We talk about the importance of self-knowledge and self-love, about intimacy and humility in our engagements and the learning that comes from every encounter.

As our last podcast episode for a while, we inevitable reflect also on how we have grown through the shared wonderings and ponderings with our guests, and the gratitude we feel for collaboration and openness in chaplaincy.

Anna (Anne) Vandenhoeck is a professor of pastoral and spiritual care at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. But her curiculum extends into other faculties like medicine and physiotherapy, giving the opportunity not only to teach spirituality to other disciplines but to work towards a shared understanding of what quality of care means. She shares some research about nurses' competence in spiritual awareness and engagement (their 'antenna'). Your feeling of helplessness is an indicator of a spiritual dimension in the conversation and you can be trained to respond in a way that the patients feels heard. Whilst tiredness, digital demands and understaffing at work can conspire against engaging with a patient at a deeper level, Anna argues that the health professional can enhance their job satisfaction through such encounters and competence. We wonder about the goal of inclusive language for conversations about spirituality and how research can help with clarifying the words used in shared definitions and concepts. It may well be that the multi-lingual context of Leuwen is key to the curiosity and ambition of finding common language.

Lindsay DeWal realised pretty soon that although her skills in Humanist pastoral care were entirely transferable to the UK context, there are significant differences from her native Holland in the culture and faith tradition which she encountered. Lindsay realised that there is little to no research from a humanist perspective in the UK and embarked on a PhD. We explore with Lindsay what her research tells us about how people within chaplaincy teams feel about their identity and place in their team. The dangers of assumptions we may make about each other are revealed but also the enrichment in the experience of cross-belief working. Our discussion goes on to reflect on the precariousness of the chaplaincy profession and its anomaly in the NHS structures and requirements. Has the time has come to forego some of the freedom of flying under the radar to professionalise what we do through training, qualifications, research and evidence based practice?

Conversations for Life offers a way to talk with the living about dying. Mary Matthiesen shares how they have developed the resources and training to have these liberating conversations that give agency and self-determination. Workshops with clinical staff using the conversation cards quickly get to the intimate and unique values that are beyond theory and dogma. We wonder about how we can guard against imposing our own constructions around death and mortality on those we encounter. It is important to allow people to flow with their conversations and to validate (and sometimes expand) their expression of individual issues or beliefs. Mary emphasises that conversations do not need to have a solution or an answer, and can be riddled with false assumptions if these are not explored and challenged. Mary shares some examples of how the Conversations for Life cards may be used with clinicians, families, children and individuals to explore and express feelings and wishes about mortality.