Lead Spiritual Practitioner - Gloucester, United Kingdom - Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Description

Job summary

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust provides joined-up mental health, physical health and learning disability services to people of all ages across Gloucestershire. We do this in our hospitals, in community buildings and in people's own homes.

The Department of Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy is looking to develop its role by meeting the pastoral, spiritual and religious needs of patients, staff and visitors across the Trust, covering the beautiful county of Gloucestershire. Within the Department, the Lead Spiritual Practitioner post is soon to become vacant, when the current postholder retires, and Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust is now keen to appoint his successor.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will manage the day-to-day operations of the Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy Team: managing and supervising Team staff; offering a private, confidential, listening service to patients and staff members, ensuring respect and dignity at all times; providing spiritual and pastoral support to people of all faiths and of no faith; and facilitating acts of worship, as and when the need arises. In addition, the postholder, as Spiritual Care Lead, will be a source of information on religion and spirituality for senior management within the Trust.

We would welcome applications from enthusiastic, highly experienced and appropriately qualified spiritual care professionals and the position is open to people of all faiths and none. The post requires the successful candidate to undertake all statutory and mandatory trainingand the post holder must be able to undertake physical interventions. Fitness for physical intervention will be assessed by Occupational Health.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are detailed in the Job Description/Person Specification.

About us

We have in excess of 5000 staff working over 50 sites, providing a diverse range of services. We strive to support an organisational culture that is welcoming, builds and celebrates inclusivity and diversity and provides a sense of belonging and trust.

The annual NHS Staff Survey gives our people the opportunity to tell us about their experience working at the Trust. For the 2023 survey just over 2800 colleagues gave us their views ( It was great to see from the results that colleagues are saying that:

Our results put us as 5th nationally as a Community, Mental Health and Learning Disabilities NHS Employer of Choice and 1st equal amongst all NHS Provider Trusts in the South West. However, we know we have more to do and will continue to drive forward our commitment to making GHC a Great Place to Work.

Job responsibilities

Together with the Modern Matron of Recovery Units, to lead and maintain the strategic vision for spiritual care and chaplaincy services within the Trust.

To develop, maintain and update appropriate policies, protocols and guidance that enable the delivery of the aforementioned vision. These will include documents such as a protocol for visits of external faith representatives, a protocol for the referral of service users, a Standard Operational Policy (SOP) for the use of our reflective spaces, and the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Spirituality Steering Group (SSG), amongst others.

To lead and manage the Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy Team, ensuring that the spiritual, pastoral and religious needs of patients, relatives, carers, students and staff are met this may sometimes mean contacting local faith representatives and requesting their input, where the patient, etc., is a member of a different faith to that of the postholder

To meet with individual patients, following a request or referral, to assess their spiritual needs; to provide a friendly, non-judgmental ear when they wish to share their concerns and anxieties; and to make available to them resources which enable/assist them to continue to observe the requirements of their religion: prayer mats, prayer beads and holy texts, for example.

In addition to supporting patients on hospital wards, the postholder may also be contacted by any of the Trusts community-based teams and asked to provide religious or spiritual support to one of their community patients. It may also be necessary to provide follow-up support to people who have recently been discharged from their inpatient setting.

To conduct staff appraisals, one-to-one support meetings, the setting and agreeing of departmental and personal objectives for each person being line managed, and to ensure that they receive and complete all appropriate training (including Trust mandatory training). As line manager to the other Spiritual Practitioners, to manage sickness, disciplinary and performance issues in a professional manner.

To oversee the provision, development and use of reflective/worship spaces throughout the Trust, ensuring that these spaces are conducive for prayer, quietness, reflection and meditation for people of all faith traditions and none.

To collect and analyse statistical data which supports and enables the development of the spiritual care and chaplaincy service.

To develop and maintain close links with local faith leaders, communities, statutory & non-statutory organisations, as required and/or requested.

To enhance local faith communities understanding of mental health and mental illness through the dissemination of available resources and through personal input, , in worship services, church meetings, away days, training events, etc., as opportunities arise.

To promote and publicise the work of the Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy Team to stakeholders within the Trust hospitals and related agencies through appropriate written information (posters, leaflets, etc.) and verbal communication (presentations, lectures, training, etc.).

To maintain, or to seek, membership of the United Kingdom Board for Healthcare Chaplaincy (UKBHC) and to uphold its professional standards for chaplains.

Qualifications

Essential

Desirable

Skills

Essential