Gone to workshop: Strengthening Our Spiritual Care
Today I will be out of my office all day (8:30am to 4:30pm) at the University of Washington's Harborview Medical Centre Research and Training building attending a workshop. It is led by George Fitchett, DMin, PhD, (author of Assessing Spiritual Needs) who is an associate professor, certified chaplain, pastoral supervisor and director of the Department of Religion, Health and Human Values at Rush University. It is called, "Strengthening Our Spiritual Care: Utilizing Evidence from Research and Spiritual Assessment." It is my hope that this workshop will help me improve professionally as a fortune-teller and counselor.
The workshop examines religious coping and religious struggle with evidence from research, and makes implications for spiritual care. I'll also learn how to make effective use of my time when I act as a volunteer chaplain including helping my health-care team colleagues make better referrals and documenting the need for and effects of spiritual care in the people I serve. I'm especially interested in learning spiritual assessment through case studies during this workshop, because I think that it is challenging to show my professional results objectively. I'll develop an initial understanding of spiritual screening, spiritual history taking and spiritual assessment as well as reviewing several models for each to analyze how they differ and their respective roles in the care of others.