In the Autumn, and before the snow came, we
ran three day workshops in the North of Scotland in Inverness, Skye and Aberdeen. The intention
was to offer residential care home staff the opportunity to take a day to think
through some of the issues around ageing and spirituality and the implications
of this for spiritual care for older people. We were delighted with the
response to our invitation. The workshops were intended to accommodate only 12
people – in two of the three cases we were bursting at the seams. However it
was good to see such an interest in the topic.
The day consisted of three parts. We
thought about our own ageing and what that might mean in terms of our
understanding of the ageing of others. We considered the challenges of working
in residential care and the pressures on time and energies for the staff. We
also thought about what “successful” ageing might look like. In the afternoon
we thought about the spiritual care of older people using an exercise called
cards on the table. This allowed the group to share ideas and develop their
thinking around the priorities and
practicalities of spiritual care. We finished by looking at a model of
spiritual care that has been developed by a group of healthcare chaplains and
researchers working in the North of Scotland.
This is now written up and about to be published in the Scottish Journal
of Health Care Chaplaincy.
Harriet Mowat
March 3rd 2010
