Things to Consider Before Opting for a Degree in Spirituality

Spirituality is spiritual care that may include information about relationships with creation to demonstrate that people are not only physical bodies that need materialistic care in life. Spirituality help persons how maintain their mental and physical health condition while facing traumas, losses, and life transitions. When a person is in crisis turns towards spirituality to deal with difficult situations or cope with stress. During illness, using spiritual practices can be the healing power for any person.

Scope for Having a Degree in Spirituality

Victims of health conditions often ask many questions like why I am ill, why I am facing this condition, when I will die, or what will happen to me when I die; facing such conditions needs spiritual care, which ultimately makes a connection to nature to maintain hope and to make their lives meaningful. Healthcare institutions need to include spiritual dimensions in their daily care provision process to avoid becoming only biological garages where patients’ organs are repaired or replaced mechanically.

Relationship of Spirituality to Healthcare

1. Healthcare organizations are compelled to work on the spiritual needs of patients as it is the right of the patients to avail such services to maintain their dignity and spiritual and psychosocial values.
2. Healthcare organizations are obliged to respect the cultural, spiritual, and religious beliefs of their clients or patients to create a mindset that cares for the heart, soul, and mind is also as important as the care of the body.
3. Fear and loneliness are a major problem during serious illness and requires spiritual care.
4. When illness is incurable, spiritual care plays an important role in answering the person’s questions who is losing hope and meaning in life.

To avoid aggressive treatments in healthcare settings, master’s degree seekers or clinicians can continue their education by becoming part of a Degree in Spirituality. Professional Chaplains are hired to bring light to the paths of patients and healthcare workers, and other professionals. This Degree enables graduates and healthcare workers to provide spiritual care with excellence to care home residents, acute care patients, and staff in a multi-faith environment.

Reasons to Opt for a Degree in Spirituality

People who want to understand the world in a better way can study spirituality and religion. Such persons understand global realities and have more employment opportunities. They have spiritual knowledge that can break the barriers of communication. It helps to connect with people of different cultures and work with them in a better environment. Such persons become more rounded individuals, which helps in their future employment.

Job Roles in Spiritual Care

Job roles in spiritual care are different according to the designation of a person.

The Director of Pastoral or Spiritual Care

Job roles may include

• Delivering a complete spiritual care program to patients, their families, and the healthcare system staff of multi-faith traditions.
• Delivery of pastoral care to ensure that requests for spiritual care are acknowledged timely. Worship opportunities, rituals, and sacrament needs have been supervised by chaplains and the employees of institutions appointed to spiritual care departments to provide pastoral care.
• To run training programs that may conduct according to institutional standards.
• Hiring adequate staff and maintaining the disciplinary process.
• Managing pastoral visitors and volunteers.
• To provide religious literature, ritual items, and office supplies.
• The development of proper administration procedures according to institutional policy.
• Planning monthly staff meetings to participate in professional development activities and periodic planning meetings for department directors.
• Participating in the research program on pastoral care for pastoral education.

The Spiritual Care Specialist is Responsible for

• Helping staff identify and resolve distress experienced by patients and their caretakers.
• Cooperating on a matter of mutual concern with visiting faith leaders and ensuring good communication.
• Appropriately documenting spiritual care support concerns and requirements on the patient records.
• Providing sufficient information to all the staff members and volunteers.
• Working with multi-disciplinary team members (MDT) and participating in MDT meetings.
• Providing hospice spiritual care spaces for prayer irrespective of faith and belief.

The Spiritual Care Coordinator is Responsible for

• Providing pastoral and spiritual care directly to patients and maintaining the profile of spiritual care in the organization.
• On-call availability.
• Maintaining the information about pastoral care on the intranet pages to help employees remain updated with their organization.
• Performing administrative duties like administering the hospice patient record system for chaplain leaders and placement visitors.
• Maintaining the stocks of required sundries.

In a Nut Shell

Spirituality is a basic aspect of human identity. Spirituality identifies the unique characteristic of a human personality, so it has become an important part of social work practice. Health care workers and master’s degree seekers need to take advanced training to provide spiritual care to patients suffering from trauma, illness, or other life-threatening conditions. In health care systems, medical team members are urged to educate themselves in spiritual care to offer specialized skills and quality care to their patients and employees who experience the stress of workload and patient care.