Introduction to Spiritual Distress: Research and Implications for Spiritual Care

Webinars for Free Church and other UK chaplains

November 21 & 29, 9:00 – 10:15 am Central Standard Time/ 3:00-4:15 PM GMT

Session 1: Basic Concepts, Examples, Prevalence, 21st November 2023
Session 2: Harmful Effects, Tools for Screening, Future Research, 29th November 2023

Description: Religious or spiritual (R/S) distress includes tensions and struggles about finding meaning in illness or injury and/or tensions and struggles with what one holds to be sacred. In these webinars we will review the research about R/S distress and discuss its implications for spiritual care providers. We will also look at methods that have been developed to identify patients or family caregivers who may be experiencing R/S distress and possibly benefit from referral to a spiritual care provider.

In Session 1 we will review basic concepts and definitions about R/S distress, and we will look at several vignettes of patients with R/S distress. Then we will examine some of the research about the prevalence of R/S distress and consider its implications for spiritual care providers.

In Session 2 we will examine some of the research about the harmful effects associated with R/S distress. Then we will review some tools that have been developed to screen for R/S distress and discuss how they can be incorporated in clinical settings to improve the provision of spiritual care. We will also discuss areas for future research about R/S distress.

Presenter: George Fitchett, D.Min., Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Religion, Health, and Human Values, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago Illinois. With training in both healthcare chaplaincy and epidemiology, he is one of the U.S.’s leading chaplain-researchers. In 1999 he and his colleagues reported the harmful effects of R/S distress in a sample of medical rehabilitation patients. The topic has remained a focus of his research. He is the former Director of Transforming Chaplaincy, whose mission is to promote evidence-based spiritual care (www.transformchaplaincy.org). In 2019 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Transforming Chaplaincy: The George Fitchett Reader, a collection of his research, was published in the Fall, 2021.

These webinars are free to attend thanks to support from the College of Healthcare Chaplains and the Free Churches Group

Please book your place HERE.

The Welcome Directory Connections Zoom, 28th Nov, 7:30pm

An hour to encourage and resource faith communities who are committed to welcoming prison leavers.

28th Nov 2022, 7:30pm to 9:00pm

The Welcome Directory is a multi-faith charity that has a simple yet powerful vision: to help faith communities become places where people who leave prison find acceptance. A place to belong that not only nurtures faith but also offers appropriate practical support.

Join us for our quarterly Connections Zoom to be encouraged and resourced in this work.

In this session you will:

Hear the first-hand story of a prison leaver who has been helped by a faith community.

Gain an awareness of how the organisations Circles UK and Daylight Ministries support people who are in and have left prison, and how you can partner with them in your own work with prion-leavers.

Have opportunity to share stories, insights and ask questions about working with prison levers.

Register your place HERE.

Islamophobia: The Causes, The Cures and The Church, Webinar, 16th Nov 2022, 19:30

Image from Eventbrite

What is Islamophobia? Does a definition matter? How do we prevent it?

Join us for a webinar with prominent activists and organisers in the Scottish Muslim community to better understand:

1. How Islamophobia is experienced, and impacts individuals and society

2. How this definition helps Muslims name their experience and non-Muslims to recognise the problem.

3 . What might help prevent and ultimately cure Islamophobia

4 . How the Church and its members might play a part in this cure

This webinar has been organised to coincide with the second annual Islamophobia Awareness Month and Scottish Interfaith Week. These occasions represent a good opportunity for us as a Church to collectively reflect on the harm caused by Islamophobia, listen to those affected and find out what we can do. Attendees will also have the chance to ask questions anonymously or directly.

Once we understand it, we can help to tackle it.

Once we listen to the impact, it is harder to dismiss.

Once we learn about the power of allyship we can focus our energies and our compassion on doing something that makes a difference.

Speakers' bios will be released to those registering and once they're finalised.

Register your place HERE.

A bit of Chaplaincy on the Side, a webinar exploring part-time chaplaincy

Monday 5th December from 18:30 to 20:00

Tickets are free and available from Eventbrite here.

Part-time chaplaincy roles come in many shapes and sizes. They may be:

• inherited as part of a church posting

• be carried out as a distinct role separate from church ministry

• a role held alongside secular employment

Whether you are working part-time as a chaplain, would be interested in doing so, or know someone who should consider doing so(!) this webinar will explore how a part-time chaplaincy role can complement, inspire and inform other roles and areas of work and look at some of the pathways to becoming a chaplain.

With input from

• The Revd Canon Helen Cameron: Chair of the Methodist Northampton District and Moderator of the Free Church Group

• Gary Hopkins: Methodist Ministry Development Officer for Chaplaincy

• Suzanne Nockels: Congregational Church Minister and Chaplain at Sheffield Children’s Hospital

• Tas Cooper, Quaker Chaplain at Oxford University and a freelance Spanish to English translator

• Bob Wilson: Secretary for Prison Chaplaincy and Free Churches Faith Advisor and chaplain at HMP Wayland

• Mark Newitt: Secretary for Healthcare Chaplaincy and part of the chaplaincy teams at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and St Luke’s Hospice

The event flyer is available to download here.

Image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay

WEBINAR INVITE from CTBI: The Churches' engagement with the Police on critical incidents

You are invited to attend ‘The Churches’ Engagement with the Police on Critical Incidents’ webinar taking place on Thursday 29 September, 7.30pm – 9.00pm, via Zoom.

Following the fatal Metropolitan Police-related shooting of Chris Kaba in south London on 5 September 2022, churches and faith-based organisations have appealed for compassion and justice for a wounded community.

This webinar, hosted by The Racial Justice Advocacy Forum (RJAF), looks at how churches and parachurch groups have experience in working as conduits in communities that have been alienated from the police, and are able to offer support to those who are seeking to develop a dialogue around these concerns.

Join us on this webinar that aims to better equip churches and communities to respond to critical incidents, and to engage with the police to build a safer society. REGISTER FOR THIS WEBINAR

The statement issued by churches following the shooting of Chris Kaba can be found on the CTBI website.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar, please do not hesitate to contact communications@ctbi.org.uk.

CTBI Communications

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland

Interchurch House

35 Lower Marsh

London SE1 7RL

T: +44 (0) 20 3794 2288 M: +44 (0) 7932 534333