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Towards National Consensus: Spiritual Care in the Australian Healthcare Context

Religions 2018, 9(12), 379; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9120379

The Enhancing Quality and Safety: Spiritual Care in Health National Consensus Conference brought together key stakeholders from across Australia to agree a national framework to ensure quality and safety in spiritual care services through a nationally consistent approach to the provision of spiritual care in Australian hospitals. A working group planned the conference that was held over two days. Invitations were distributed to a wide range of stakeholders to ensure a diversity of voices contributed to the outcomes. The conference proceedings included presentations, small group work and facilitated discussion to enable progress on the conference objective. A conference report of the key outcomes was produced and widely distributed. The national consensus conference outcomes described five principles for the design and delivery of spiritual care services for the Australian context. Ten policy statements described key deliverables that could be used to benchmark and measure a nationally consistent approach to spiritual care.
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Christian Spirituality in Eating Disorder Recovery

Religions 2018, 9(2), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020061

Eating disorders are some of the most severe and destructive of all psychological conditions. They are associated with restricted capacities in cognitive, emotional, physical, and spiritual development. This paper provides an examination of the practical application of Christian spirituality as a force for recovery from an eating disorder. Specifically, it expounds the transformative potential in the spiritual qualities of hope, trust, acceptance, surrender, and courage underpinning engagement with evidence-based therapeutic models of care in eating disorder recovery.
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Spirituality in the Healthcare Workplace

Religions 2017, 8(12), 260; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8120260

Spirituality involves a sense of connectedness, meaning making and transcendence. There is abundant published research that focuses on the importance of spirituality to patients and their families during times of illness and distress. However over the last decade there has also been a growing awareness about the importance of considering the need to address peoples’ spiritual needs in the workplace. Engaging in ones own personal spirituality involves connecting with the inner self, becoming more self aware of ones humanity and limitations. Engaging with ones personal spirituality can also mean that people begin to greater find meaning and purpose in life and at work. This may be demonstrated in the workplace by collegial relationships and teamwork. Those who engage with their own spirituality also engage more easily with others through a connectedness with other staff and by aligning their values with the respective organization if they fit well with ones personal values. Workplace spirituality is oriented towards self-awareness of an inner life which gives meaning, purpose and nourishment to the employees’ dynamic relationships at the workplace and is eventually also nourished by meaningful work. Exercising ones personal spirituality contributes towards generating workplace spirituality. Essentially acting from ones own personal spirituality framework by being in doing can contribute towards a person becoming a healing and therapeutic presence for others, that is nourishing in many workplaces. Personal spirituality in healthcare can be enhanced by: reflection in and on action; role-modeling; taking initiative for active presence in care; committing oneself to the spiritual dimension of care; and, integrating spirituality in health caregivers’ education. As spirituality is recognized as becoming increasingly important for patients in healthcare, increasing educational opportunities are now becoming available for nurses internationally that could support personal and workplace spirituality.
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Art Images in Holistic Nursing Education

Religions 2017, 8(6), 103; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8060103

Background: Nursing research has concentrated on empirical knowing with little focus on aesthetic knowing. Evidence from the literature suggests that using visual art in nursing education enhances both clinical observation skills and interpersonal skills. The purpose of this review was to explore how visual art has been used in baccalaureate nursing education. Methods: Of 712 records, 13 studies met the criteria of art, nursing and education among baccalaureate nursing students published in English. Results: Three quantitative studies demonstrated statistical significance between nursing students who participated in arts-based learning compared to nursing students who received traditional learning. Findings included improved recall, increased critical thinking and enhanced emotional investment. Themes identified in 10 qualitative studies included spirituality as role enhancement, empathy, and creativity. Conclusion: Visual arts-based learning in pre-licensure curriculum complements traditional content. It supports spirituality as role enhancement in nurse training. Visual art has been successfully used to enhance both critical thinking and interpersonal relations. Nursing students may experience a greater intra-connectedness that results in better inter-connectedness with patients and colleagues. Incorporating visual arts into pre-licensure curriculums is necessary to nurture holistic nursing practice.
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Spiritual Vulnerability, Spiritual Risk and Spiritual Safety—In Answer to a Question: ‘Why Is Spirituality Important within Health and Social Care?’ at the ‘Second International Spirituality in Healthcare Conference 2016—Nurturing the Spirit.’ Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Religions 2017, 8(3), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8030038

In offering an answer to the question, ‘Why is spirituality important within health and social care?’ this paper articulates views on the concepts ‘Spiritual Vulnerability,’ ‘Spiritual Risk’ and ‘Spiritual Safety’ and argues for the centrality of spirituality within holistic, person-centred professional health and social care. It proceeds to offer a definition of Spiritual Safety and then goes on to highlight how the patient being and feeling spiritually safe and how professional carers enabling spiritual safety can reduce spiritual vulnerability and spiritual risk; and may be seen as essential aspects of professional holistic care.
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Hidden Suffering and the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Religions 2017, 8(3), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8030031

To understand suffering is to understand what it means to be human. Suffering focuses our attention on our vulnerability, which we would rather ignore or deny. As health care professionals (HCP) we need to be able to listen, to attune and be empathic to the suffering patient. If we act as an “enlightened witness” we provide a safe place for a suffering patient to grieve their loss and be vulnerable. This is skilled and demanding work, it is also important to tend to our own needs through a practice of self-care and reflection to prevent burn-out and compassion fatigue. The topic of adverse childhood experiences (ACE), which are common in the general population, are addressed in the second part of this paper. Their effects are profound, and increase with the degree of maltreatment. The maltreatment and suffering of these children usually remains hidden into adulthood beneath years of shame and denial. One aspect of our job in health care is to help patients acknowledge, experience, and bear the reality of life with all its pleasures and heartache. In order to do this well, we need to keep in touch with our own humanity, but also continue to take care of ourselves.
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Protocol of Taste and See: A Feasibility Study of a Church-Based, Healthy, Intuitive Eating Programme

Religions 2016, 7(4), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7040041

Obesity treatment remains a high global priority. Evidence suggests holistic approaches, which include a religious element, are promising. Most research is from the USA, but recent evidence suggests a need within the UK population. The aim of this study is to explore the feasibility of running and evaluating a Christian-based, healthy, intuitive-eating programme, in a UK church. This is the protocol of a mixed-methods single-group feasibility study of a ten-week programme. The programme focuses on breaking the “diet and weight regain” cycle using principles from intuitive eating uniquely combined with biblical principles of love, freedom, responsibility, forgiveness, and spiritual need. We will recruit at least ten adult participants who are obese, overweight, or of a healthy weight with problematic eating behaviours. Participants can be from any faith or none. Robust measures of physical, psychological and spiritual outcomes will be used. Results are not yet available. Findings will be used to design a cluster-randomised controlled trial to test efficacy through many churches. If weight reduces by a small amount, there will be substantial benefits to public health. With a strong association between obesity and mental-ill health, a holistic intervention is particularly important. Using churches addresses religious and spiritual health, and uses existing social structures and a voluntary workforce that are sustainable and cost-effective.
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Modern Restlessness, from Hobbes to Augustine

Religions 2015, 6(2), 626-637; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6020626

Only with difficulty do modern readers grasp the full import of Augustine’s confession, “Restless is our heart, until it rests in you”, or seriously consider that it might be true. An unexpected remedy is to be found in reading Thomas Hobbes, who introduces and defends the view of happiness that is now commonly accepted without argument. According to Hobbes, human beings find their happiness not in a single, supreme good but in many objects, the securing of which requires a lifelong quest for power. But this teaching, influential and revealing though it is, fails to satisfy. Meditating on that dissatisfaction is a first step towards more serious engagement with Augustine.
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Spiritual Care Education of Health Care Professionals

Religions 2015, 6(2), 594-613; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6020594

Nurses and health care professionals should have an active role in meeting the spiritual needs of patients in collaboration with the family and the chaplain. Literature criticizes the impaired holistic care because the spiritual dimension is often overlooked by health care professionals. This could be due to feelings of incompetence due to lack of education on spiritual care; lack of inter-professional education (IPE); work overload; lack of time; different cultures; lack of attention to personal spirituality; ethical issues and unwillingness to deliver spiritual care. Literature defines spiritual care as recognizing, respecting, and meeting patients’ spiritual needs; facilitating participation in religious rituals; communicating through listening and talking with clients; being with the patient by caring, supporting, and showing empathy; promoting a sense of well-being by helping them to find meaning and purpose in their illness and overall life; and referring them to other professionals, including the chaplain/pastor. This paper outlines the systematic mode of intra-professional theoretical education on spiritual care and its integration into their clinical practice; supported by role modeling. Examples will be given from the author’s creative and innovative ways of teaching spiritual care to undergraduate and post-graduate students. The essence of spiritual care is being in doing whereby personal spirituality and therapeutic use of self contribute towards effective holistic care. While taking into consideration the factors that may inhibit and enhance the delivery of spiritual care, recommendations are proposed to the education, clinical, and management sectors for further research and personal spirituality to ameliorate patient holistic care.
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Seeking the Place of Conscience in Higher Education: An Augustinian View

Religions 2015, 6(2), 286-298; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6020286

This article explores the place of conscience in higher education. It begins by reconstructing the place of conscience in Augustine’s thought, drawing on Augustine’s reading of Genesis 3, the Psalms, and his own spiritual journey. Its basic aim is to clarify Augustine’s account of conscience as self-judgment, identifying the conditions under which self-judgment occurs. After identifying these conditions it addresses the question: does conscience still have a place in modern higher education? It acknowledges the real limitations and obstacles to moral education when pursued in the context of the modern research university. However, it also argues that moral education proceeds in stages, and that educators can anticipate and clear a way for the place of conscience—though not, of course, without reliance on the movement of grace.
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Augustine, Addiction and Lent: A Pedagogic Exercise

Religions 2015, 6(1), 113-121; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6010113

The article describes a series of pedagogic exercises developed to help students in a General Education course at a Jesuit university to engage fruitfully with Augustine’s Confessions in a way that will facilitate and deepen their understanding of a classic text of the Western tradition and, at the same time, promote their personal formation in keeping with the goals of Ignatian pedagogy.
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