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Document No 64
2004 Page last updated:
25 July, 2005
Spiritual healthcare
in a Mental Health Context
Some Operational, Philosophical and Theological Presuppositions
Peter Richmond April 04
Lead Chaplain East Kent NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust
1. Chaplains and their community of belonging
In order to fulfill the tasks and learn the skills of chaplaincy, chaplains must look after their own spiritual needs including maintaining relationships within their own religious community. For an Anglican priest, for instance, there is need to be committed to the community of the Church of England, to the tradition that has been delivered through the ministry of bishops, priests and deacons. This will affirm a sense of belonging to the Church of God, by sharing in the work of Christ through partnership with bishop, other clergy and congregations alike. The corporate nature of the priestly vocation is vital, for it assures of the church's commitment to the chaplain. This is a healthy state of affairs, for, as in any walk of life, as we care for one another in what we do, so we empower participation in a fuller humanity, enjoy the tradition where we find nurture for growth and formation, and better fulfil the roles we take up in life.
2. Chaplains work being for all and for any
Chaplains take care that, as far as they are able, all service users have the opportunity of help with their religious and spiritual needs. Necessary for this to happen is a mind open to understand the spirituality and faith traditions within the world that the Trust finds itself. For some service users this will not be through religion, but will include a proper response to the sources of meaning, value and purpose in secularity, agnosticism and atheism. Some service users have religious faith with roots and life outside the traditions represented by members of the chaplaincy team. NHS Chaplaincy policy draws on a number of cultures formed through religious and humanistic values and looks to broadly universalist principles. We seek to serve each person as they come and from where they come. Those who authorise health care chaplaincy do so on the basis that we work using interfaith and multicultural protocols and will not favour or disfavour one tradition over others.
3. Chaplains working in partnership
Chaplaincy is one partnership in a raft of partnerships, belonging to the whole by many connections. We have chaplains from a variety of traditions, some paid and some honorary, both ordained and lay people. We have interested partners and intelligent friends both within the Trust and in the community. These relationships need further fostering and developing. In the service of service users, we seek a connectedness that comes from taking each other seriously. Such a style of relationship makes for important learning, to better hear one another tell of experience in the depths and notes of life. We listen, not to gain a space to put our views forward, but because every person is worth listening to, in their own right.
4. Chaplains as symbols of healthcare purpose
With colleagues in the Trust, there is common purpose, a high ambition to uphold together and work towards. Chaplaincy, because of its religious facility, has a symbolic capacity to represent what the Trust stands for as a whole. The Trust is here to help provide for and better enable the care of people whose mental health has been significantly impaired. Together, and only together with a full variety of statutory, voluntary and independent bodies, we endeavour to disable the powers of impairment. We have begun to live within a new culture, one where people are not expected to simply bear disability, with fortitude or not, as the case may be. Our work is for opportunity and empowerment, by enlightenment, place for restoring hope, experience of healing, of honest love, capable human science, creative art and caring social organisation. Chaplaincy says yes to all these things, even when they are the entire responsibility of others.
5. Chaplains, the nature of God and our relationship with the Divine
One way or another, most people can use a little hope, faith and love, excellent resources that empower and connect. Spiritual life breathes these, through our environment, our relationships, into the body of the true self and beyond, into the mystery of God. Against the drag of life's contrary winds, there is strength here for purpose and power for growth. Whether orientated individually and corporately, humanity requires something beyond isolated initiatives at solving our pressing problems and threats. What we require is connectedness, and if that is what we counsel others to find, chaplains need to find it for themselves too.
6. Chaplains and their spiritual home
Spirituality at its heart is about being in the counter draught of divine source, presence and stream of being. Mental health chaplaincy has a vocation to such exploration, given it by circumstance and design. We welcome the opportunity, and hope that what we do will bear good fruit. Our work may be eclectic, but is not without internal structures. We may not have a ready home in the compartments of those who would post us under headings of religion, social care or holistic therapy. Spiritual healthcare is as good a title as any for now, but it is the content and the outworking of its meaning that really matters.
Peter Richmond April 04
Lead Chaplain East Kent NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust
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