Melissa A Smigelsky, Justin L Maynard, C Graham Ford, Ryan Parker, Jennifer H Wortmann, Keith G Meador, Anna Fink, Jason A Nieuwsma
{"title":"Increasing chaplain support for veterans at high risk for suicide through targeted outreach: A quality improvement initiative.","authors":"Melissa A Smigelsky, Justin L Maynard, C Graham Ford, Ryan Parker, Jennifer H Wortmann, Keith G Meador, Anna Fink, Jason A Nieuwsma","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2136466","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2136466","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has prioritized improving the identification of veterans at risk for suicide and ensuring adequate staffing of personnel to assist veterans in need. It is imperative that suicide prevention efforts make use of the full range of available resources, including diverse professionals with distinctive skillsets. Chaplains are engaged in suicide prevention efforts in VA, but the literature lacks examples of chaplain-involved suicide prevention efforts that clearly describe how chaplains are engaged, the training and/or qualifications chaplains possess in the area of suicide prevention, and the reach and impact of such efforts. The purpose of this report is to describe the development and implementation of a novel, innovative, and ongoing chaplain-led suicide prevention outreach initiative for veterans at high risk for suicide. Results indicated the program was feasible and supported at the systems level, and chaplains were able to collaboratively sustain outreach efforts over the course of a year. Chaplain suicide prevention outreach was found to be acceptable to veterans, who overwhelmingly indicated openness to and appreciation for outreach. Chaplains can address the spiritual crisis underlying suicidality, bolster spiritual protective factors, and are a part of holistic care. Considerations for implementation and future investigation are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"1 1","pages":"33-45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46552793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robert Klitzman, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Stephanie Sinnappan, Jay Al-Hashimi
{"title":"When and why patients and families reject chaplains: challenges, strategies and solutions.","authors":"Robert Klitzman, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Stephanie Sinnappan, Jay Al-Hashimi","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2150026","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2150026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hospital chaplains perform important activities, but critical questions arise about the challenges they may face in working with patients, and how these professionals respond. Thirty-three telephone interviews of approximately 1 hour and were conducted with 21 board-certified chaplains. When asked about their biggest challenges and most rewarding interactions, several chaplains described rejections by patients or families. Patients and families at times rejected chaplains, and did so for six broad types of reasons - not wanting to discuss the disease due to conflicted feelings, including anger or frustration at the patient, the cosmos or God; or wanting to minimize it; wanting a chaplain of their own faith; or of a particular gender or other characteristic; being atheist or wary of religion; or misunderstanding what chaplains do. Patients at times also disagreed with family members about whether to reject a chaplain. Chaplains responded variously: feeling transitory hurt (which generally decreases with experience); respecting patients' autonomy and leaving; exploring reasons for rejection; and revisiting later and often then making helpful connections. These data have important implications for future practice, education and research regarding chaplains and other providers - suggesting, for example, how patients' families and the public might benefit from increased understanding about the field.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"46-59"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10379679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Betty R Ferrell, Haley Buller, Judith A Paice, Myra Glajchen, Trace Haythorn
{"title":"Interprofessional communication training to address spiritual aspects of cancer care.","authors":"Betty R Ferrell, Haley Buller, Judith A Paice, Myra Glajchen, Trace Haythorn","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2097781","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2097781","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Effective communication is essential for palliative care clinicians to provide quality spiritual care to cancer patients. Despite attention to spiritual needs having the potential to positively impact a patient's quality of life, clinicians continue to report a lack of confidence in addressing a patient's spiritual distress. This article addresses the development of a 3-day train-the-trainer communication cancer education program (ICC: Interprofessional Communication Curriculum) organized by the 8 domains of the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care. The main objectives of ICC are to train adult oncology clinicians (nurses, social workers, and chaplains) in communication skills across all aspects of palliative care and to help prepare them to provide communication skills training to their colleagues at their home institutions. ICC participants attend in dyads consisting of differing disciplines and create 3 goals for implementing institutional change. To date, 126 participants (69 teams) have attended an ICC training. Pre-course survey results identified spiritual care as participants' least effective area of communication. Immediate post-course evaluation data revealed the spiritual care module and its subsequent lab session as the most useful sessions to participant's practice. Data from the 6-and-12-months post-course follow-up revealed participant's quality improvement projects focused heavily on improving spiritual care.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"399-411"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9850499/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10550964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring racism and racialization in the work of healthcare chaplains: a case for a critical multifaith approach.","authors":"Sonya Sharma, Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2209462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2023.2209462","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The global COVID-19 pandemic has revealed healthcare settings as sites of much-needed scrutiny as to the workings of racism and racialization in shaping healthcare encounters, health outcomes, and workplace conditions. Little research has focused on how healthcare chaplains experience and respond to social processes of racism and racialization. We apply a critical race lens to understand racism and racialization in healthcare chaplaincy, and inspired by Patricia Hill Collins, propose a “critical multifaith approach.” Drawing on research in healthcare in Canada and England, we generated four composite narratives to analyze racialization’s variability and resistances employed by Indigenous, Arab, Black, and White chaplains. The composites disclose complex intersecting histories of colonialism, religion, race, and gender. Developing a critical multifaith perspective on healthcare delivery is an essential competency for chaplains wanting to impact the systems in which they serve in the direction of more equitable human flourishing.","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"307-319"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10040104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"I need my granddaughter to know who I am!\" A case study of a 67-year-old African American man and his spiritual legacy.","authors":"Christina Shu","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2209463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2023.2209463","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This case study describes the spiritual care relationship between an African American man receiving palliative care for metastatic cancer and a Chinese American woman chaplain over the period of multiple hospitalizations. It illustrates legacy making as a key spiritual need, one that is complicated by discrimination, structural racism, estranged family relationships, and the patient's own mortality. Included are verbatim conversations that address the impact of racism in the US context and express the complex identities of both patient and chaplain in a dynamic and collaborative intercultural relationship. This case posits the importance of voices of chaplains of color and encourages all chaplains to develop caregiving capacities that address patients' needs for racial justice, meaning, and spiritual legacy.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"256-268"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10073249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marilyn J D Barnes, Calvin Bradley, Lex Cade-White, Jaclyn P Williams
{"title":"\"I've never seen a Black woman chaplain before:\" From personal narratives to hypotheses.","authors":"Marilyn J D Barnes, Calvin Bradley, Lex Cade-White, Jaclyn P Williams","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2209465","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2209465","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article shifts the traditional approach to case studies in healthcare chaplaincy from questions about what chaplains do to questions of who chaplains are and how they experience the work. We draw insights from womanist theology to offer three narratives written by African American healthcare chaplains that illustrate themes of intersectionality, the effects interview contexts have on training and work, and key questions that emerge while doing the work. These narratives honor the largely invisible work of African-American chaplains while raising central hypotheses for research and intervention we outline in conclusion.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"279-291"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9705221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chaplains of Color: Histories and Practices.","authors":"Wendy Cadge, Barbara Savage, Marilyn J D Barnes","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2210028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2023.2210028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>From the gallows and fields of war to the street and bedside, chaplains of color have been present and instrumental in providing spiritual and emotional support in public and private settings across the United States. Their histories and experiences are not well documented and integrated into the field of spiritual care and chaplaincy, a field often understood as predominantly White, male, and Christian. This article introduces this special issue by offering historical context-particularly for Black chaplains-and naming the key themes that weave through the articles included. Naming the experiences of chaplains of color is a central step in responding to historically grounded racial inequities in the work of chaplaincy and spiritual care in the United States.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"245-255"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9682720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Racial burdens in the work experiences of state-supported Black chaplains.","authors":"Wendy Cadge","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2210027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2023.2210027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>To understand and improve the experiences of Black chaplains, it is essential to consider how they experience and are integrated into their workplaces. This article draws from interviews with ten Black chaplains in the military and prisons. In light of historic, state-sanctioned, discrimination in these institutions, we ask how these chaplains experience their workplaces racially. All experience racial burdens in the workplace as part of being the first or only Black chaplain or in response to overt racial discrimination. They identify few to no formal workplace efforts to support them as Black chaplains and spoke of resistance to informal efforts that have been tried over the years. State and federal workplaces must recognize the racial burdens Black chaplains' experiences and take action to respond to and support these systemic workplace issues.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"269-278"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9686664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Allison Kestenbaum, Kathryn D Winters, Ayelet Ruppin-Pham, Matthew J Valdez, Candis Cammon, Kathryn Hamelin, Kyle P Edmonds
{"title":"Improving access to palliative care clinical pastoral education.","authors":"Allison Kestenbaum, Kathryn D Winters, Ayelet Ruppin-Pham, Matthew J Valdez, Candis Cammon, Kathryn Hamelin, Kyle P Edmonds","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2209464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2023.2209464","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Palliative care is interprofessional care for seriously ill people. Many clergy, religious leaders, and hospice and palliative care chaplains of color and minority religious backgrounds desire clinical palliative care education. This manuscript presents findings from a three-year quality improvement project which included the development of a palliative care specialty ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care and Education (ACPE) accredited program at an academic medical center. The program was designed to improve spiritual care provision in palliative care at the institution and to facilitate the participation of clergy and spiritual leaders of color and minority religious groups. Forty-six students participated in 53 400-h clinical pastoral education units. Strategies from medical education literature were employed to address obstacles to CPE participation including a racially and religiously diverse CPE advisory group, financial assistance, flexible learning (e.g. hybrid, asynchronous), and clinical placement agreements at places of employment. Upon completion of the program students provided written feedback, participated in a structured exit interview and completed a survey. Data were reviewed for common themes and results report student perceptions about the strategies utilized.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"320-335"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10040108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Beth L Muehlhausen, Cate Michelle Desjardins, Beba Shensi Tata-Mbeng, Christa Chappelle, Allison DeLaney, Antonina Olszewski, Csaba Szilagyi, George Fitchett
{"title":"Spiritual care department leaders' response to racial reckoning in 2020 and 2021.","authors":"Beth L Muehlhausen, Cate Michelle Desjardins, Beba Shensi Tata-Mbeng, Christa Chappelle, Allison DeLaney, Antonina Olszewski, Csaba Szilagyi, George Fitchett","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2167416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2023.2167416","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ascension, one of the largest Roman Catholic healthcare systems, and Transforming Chaplaincy (TC) collaborated on a research project \"Managing Spiritual Care (SC) Departments During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study.\" Research participants included 22 leaders from Ascension and TC contacts. Four rounds of individual interviews were conducted from April, 2020 to February, 2021. After issues of race and racial reckoning following George Floyd's murder were brought up spontaneously in interviews, questions on how leaders responded to racial reckoning were added to the subsequent interviews. A secondary analysis examined responses from participants on racial reckoning from interviews 2-4. The objective of this study was to better understand how SC leaders understand their role in issues concerning justice, equity, and inclusion. This study utilized hermeneutic phenomenology methodology. Four phenomenological patterns emerged including: World of Racial Reckoning, Lack of Safety, Creating Safety, and Movement Toward Justice.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"29 3","pages":"292-306"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10038088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}