CHAPLAINCY PUBLICATIONS & RESOURCES:

•  HEALTHCARE CHAPLAINCY GUIDELINES (2004)

The key purpose of the guidelines is:

'To guide chaplains, pastoral care workers and/or pastoral care departments, within a holistic approach to health, to comprehensively assess and respond to the spiritual and emotional needs of people, and to their experiences of life and death, illness and injury, in the context of a faith or belief system'.

The document is useful for the systematic provision of pastoral care to departments, staff, patients/residents and families. A national review, assessing the utility of this document, was conducted during 2001, republished by the AHWCA and launched at the National AHWCA conference at Queen's College, University of Melbourne. The document lists five key roles:

1.  Identify and assess needs for chaplaincy provision,

2.  Manage and develop a chaplaincy service,

3.  Provide opportunities for worship and religious expression,

4.  Provide pastoral care, counselling and spiritual direction,

5.  Provide an informed resource on ethical theological and pastoral matters.

These key roles comprise the following units of competence (which are further divided into 'elements'; refer actual document for greater detail) with their corresponding code (e.g., A.1):

Health Care Chaplaincy Guidelines: "Units of Competence":

•  Identify and assess needs for chaplaincy provision (A.1).

•  Develop and Implement a chaplaincy service (A.2).

•  Manage a chaplaincy service (B.1).

•  Develop resources of the chaplaincy service (B.2).

•  Meet personal religious and worship needs (C.1).

•  Meet communal religious and worship needs (C.2).

•  Respond to pastoral and spiritual needs (D.1).

•  Provide and record pastoral care services and interventions (D.2) (refer below)

•  Provide and ethical theological and pastoral resource (E.1).

•  Initiate and contribute to training and development (E.2).

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•  LOSING OUR SOUL?

Talk from AHWCA Continuing Education Conference by Sr. Janette Gray RSM, Bethlehem Hospital.   [Please click on this link to download the PDF document]

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•  PASTORAL INTERVENTION CODINGS (2002)

· The World Health Organization, International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Volume 10, Australian Modification (AM) [ICD-10-AM] has categorized pastoral care services to patients as 'pastoral interventions' with effect of July 2002. The codings were supported by the Australian Health & Welfare Chaplains Association (2001) and by the Australian College of Chaplains (2001). The ICD categories are particular to pastoral care services provided to patients/residents and permit a recognized common coding and recording of pastoral care services/activities that take place with patients/residents within health and welfare institutions at an international, national, state or local level.

The main categories are:

•  Pastoral Assessment: (ICD code: 96186-00; M-H 1824) Description: An appraisal of the spiritual wellbeing, needs and resources of a person within the context of a pastoral encounter.

•  Pastoral Ministry: (ICD code 96187-00; M-H 1915)

Description: The provision of the primary expression of the service (a "ministry of presence" by 'being there') which may include; providing a ministry of presence, establishing of relationship / engagement with another, hearing the story, and the enabling of pastoral conversation in which spiritual wellbeing and healing may be nurtured, and companioning persons confronted with profound human issues of death and dying, loss, meaning and aloneness.

•  Pastoral Counselling and Education: (ICD code 96087-00; M-H 1869) Description : An expression of Pastoral Care that includes personal or familial counsel, ethical consultation, a facilitative review of one's spiritual journey and support in matters of religious belief or practice. The intervention expresses a level of service that may include counselling and catechesis for example, and the following elements may be identified :- "emotional/spiritual counsel", "ethical consultation", "religious counsel/ catechesis", "spiritual review", "death and dying". Note : The interventions "Bereavement care/counsel", and "Crisis care / debriefing", for example, are not profession-specific to Pastoral Care and are therefore given generic code numbers in ICD-10-AM. When making annotations in the Patient/Resident record therefore, these latter terms may be used by Pastoral Care personnel, but coders will record such activity within the relevant generic codes.

•  Pastoral Ritual and Worship: (ICD code: 96109-01; M-H 1873 ) Description : This intervention contains the pastoral expressions of informal prayer and ritual for individuals or small groups, and the public and more formal expressions of worship, including Eucharist and other services, for faith communities and others Elements of this intervention include :- (a) "private prayer and devotion", bedside "Communion" and "Anointing" services, "Blessing and Naming" services for the stillborn and miscarried, and other "sacrament" and ritual expressions; (b) "public ministry" - "Eucharist / Ministry of the Word", funerals, memorials, seasonal and occasional services

AHWCA - ICD-10AM Pastoral Interventions (P.C.I.) Committee: M. Brennan, G. Gibbons, L.B. Carey

•  OTHER PUBLISHED RESOURCES :

*     Australian Chaplaincy Utility Research ('AUS.CUR'), Email: carey_l@optusnet.com.au

*      'Chaplaincy in the Clinical Context: Anthology of Published Articles, Conference Volume One';

       Rev. Lindsay B. Carey [Ed]. Melbourne, Victoria; Email: carey_l@optusnet.com.au