We were delighted to have Leon Dundas back as our guest this time talking about Intercultural Fluency. Leon brings not only his wealth of experience of 'quality listening services' but also his vision and humility when talking about how he strives to find the language, cultural references and bridges into other worldviews. It is about hospitality, valuing others worldviews , not in a tokenistic way or smudging out the differences, but striving for authenticity whilst leaning away from the assumption that one (dominant) paradigm is the right one. Leon talks about the risk of 'going in deep' and we look at how chaplains and pastoral carers might adopt genuinely inclusive practices.

Daniel Nuzum is joined by two students (Kate and Paula) from the pilot CPE project that trials a way for UK pastoral carers to gain a professional qualification that is recognised internationally and solidly based in lived experience and clinical practice. The course demands a knowledge of self and a sharing of self that means practitioners have a heightened awareness of ‘who the patient meets when they meet me’. We learn more about the course, the appetite in the NHS to support it and the potential it has to breed a new diverse generation of pastoral carers and healthcare chaplains.

Daniel Grossoehme shares with us how his research agenda explores some of the same territory that he did as a chaplain. He has been researching the role of spiritual beliefs in coping with the impact of cystic fibrosis on families, learning from their experience as to how to help their children live well. We ask about collaborative research and the responsibility of the researcher to help people to find the language and vocabulary to describe their circumstances and feelings. People tell their story in different ways to different people: mixing up the team enriches conversations.

In this wide ranging discussion with Nell Cockell we explore how she works with families in the community where there has been a child with a life-limiting condition who has died. We explore how her role evolved from an initial focus on the staff who knew the families, and the need to 'debrief' not just on a clinical but also an emotional /spiritual plane. We ponder how you find people who are right for the role of pastoral and spiritual care and Nell shares here insights and experiences of walking (sometimes literally) with parents in their grief. Many useful steers and perspectives for an evolving concept of what chaplaincy is and where it happens.

Josh talks us through his journey from acting into chaplaincy, qualifying in the MA is Pastoral and Existential Practice he appreciates the colleagues who took a punt on him and gave him the chance to join in chaplaincy with a non-religious worldview. Josh combines his mental health chaplaincy work with teaching acting and voice-overs and draws parallels with the skills he teaches actors in being in the 'now', being open, holding a safe space and suspending judgement. Improvisation calls for a 'wait and see' approach where 'the scene is in the other person' and our reactions are in response to their actions. At times this calls for a flight of fancy and a suspension of logic to join in and Josh talks inspiringly of his pastoral care approach and how he complements the therapists and consultants in attending to people's mental ill health. The longer term care of people in the Mental Health Trust means that he sees people regularly and develops incremental and longer term conversations, in ward and community settings. We reflect on the complexity of the journey that people may make through their mental ill-health and how grief and intrusive voices can be part of what they are dealing with.

Josh shares that he is neuro-divergant and how this insight helps him in his work. This leads us to comment on how chaplaincy teams are only as rich as the people in them and how the experience of being a minority has such value in how we understand and behave towards others. We wonder about the value of humour in our work and how for Josh, finding out what makes someone laugh can be a way into learning more about them and how they look at life. Josh leaves us with the observation that the recent NHS chaplaincy guidelines fail to address role of chaplaincy in the mental health context - it differs in important ways for acute and end of life chaplaincy and this needs to be addressed.

The challenge of meeting pastoral and spiritual needs in the fast pace and mobility of a large acute hospital is contrasted with the steadier hospice environment leading us to wonder about how to be sure that we are not favouring some folk over others in our visiting practice. Referrals are often the backbone of chaplaincies, but can this skew who gets to see us? On the one hand there may be gatekeepers who expedite a chaplaincy visit because of their own convictions on behalf of a patient, and on the other hand those who might seek to 'protect' their patients due to a misunderstanding of the inclusive pastoral nature of the role. There is also a danger of us following own preferences and developing a case load of visiting with patients with whom we feel most affinity. We discuss ways to keep chaplaincy open to all, open to immediate or transitory need, open to skeptics, so that we can strive to be fair and equal and alert to the bias and assumptions that can favour some over others.