Griffin to offer spiritual care training

DERBY - Griffin Hospital will start a spiritual care training program this year thanks to a generous grant from philanthropist Jean Graustein.

The Clinical Pastoral Education for Healthcare Program will provide nurses and other healthcare professionals with clinical and classroom training in how to include spirituality into the care they provide their patients.

“This program will help healthcare professionals understand how patients’ beliefs and values are integral to the whole person and how they can include their own spirituality in a manner that is helpful in human interaction and relationships,” said the Rev. Jo Clare Wilson, director of Griffin’s Pastoral Care and Education Program.

Wilson said she hopes the program will serve as a model for other hospitals in the Planetree Inc. network, of which Griffin is a member.
Planetree is an international consumer healthcare organization dedicated to humanizing health care, including implementation of innovative models of healthcare that focus on healing and nurturing of body, mind, and spirit.

Though spirituality is increasingly considered part of the healing process and a necessary ingredient in the delivery of excellent care, Wilson said, medical and nursing staff often see it as the exclusive domain of pastoral care, the patient, or the patient’s own family or personal spiritual leader.

“The Planetree vision for the incorporation of spirituality in care requires that healthcare providers, not just the chaplains, are knowledgeable about and aware of the spiritual needs of patients and families as central to the healing process,” Wilson said.

This information is taken from a press release from Griffin Hospital.