
Embracing Spiritual Care at home with St Michael's Hospice
Embracing Spiritual Care at home with St Michael’s Hospice
Since starting at St Michael’s, a recurring question has been how can we provide spiritual care in people’s homes as part of the amazing Hospice at Home provision?
In my previous roles as a church minister, an aspect I focused on was as a community development specialist, finding ways that communities could develop a shared sense of identity and purpose. So, when I looked at the question of increasing Spiritual Care provision through Hospice at Home, I tapped into my previous experience.
This brought me to the conclusion that within our community, there are already numerous groups providing ‘pastoral’-type care – faith communities among them.
So following what could be described as an opportune meeting with Rev Angie Kateley, Assistant Curate at Abbeydore Deanery, we started to plan a pilot project around Abbeydore Deanery, which is a grouping of 35 Christian churches in 33 parishes covering a community of 12,000.
We have nine trained visitors (seven are pictured with myself – front centre). We have added a degree of foundational palliative care training to their knowledge base, and they can go and provide Spiritual Care on behalf of the Hospice to anyone who needs it within the pilot area. After six months, we’ll look to evolve the concept based on our findings.
If you are part of a group which you think could get involved in the provision of this care in your community, please get in touch with me here
Peter Spence
Spiritual Care Lead for St Michael’s Hospice