Learning to listen

THE Revd Derrick Carr on how a course developed in the Amersham Deanery has equipped hundreds of people with pastoral care skills. Looking back it's difficult to believe that our original Pastoral Care course began in 2008 and that over the ensuing years over 300 people have attended.

The impetus came from the then Area Dean the Revd (now Canon) John Wynburne.

John had the vision that there should be trained pastoral care teams in every parish in the Deanery and tasked the Revd Carolynn Croisdale-Appleby and the Revd Derrick Carr with designing a course that would fit the needs of the churches in the Deanery. The result was the first Pastoral Care Course, which was delivered in two blocks of 10 weeks, with each weekly session lasting two hours.

This was presented to the Deanery Synod where members wholeheartedly approved it and provided generous financial support.

We originally planned for 16 students but we had 25 applicants.

We needed a name for these volunteers who would be assisting their incumbents in the parishes.

This level of pastoral care is about caring for people and listening to them through major life changes, relationship breakdown and bereavement.

The emphasis was (and still is) very much on training befrienders not counsellors.

We discovered that a number of other Dioceses called their volunteers Lay Pastoral Assistants and this seemed eminently appropriate so LPA's they became.

We were fortunate to have some experienced facilitators in our deanery, each with their own specialism to run the course and they have remained with us to the present day.

At the end of the course there was an 'away day' when there was a chance to reflect on what they had learnt and to have some quiet time.

We also had a commissioning service and the presentation of a Deanery Certificate.

(At this point there were no diocesan guidelines for Pastoral Care training. )The original course worked well and the response from our students was positive but we felt that 20 weeks was too much of an ask and so went through a re-design and came up with a Foundation Course in Pastoral Care comprising 10 sessions plus an 'away day' specifically to support the LPAs.

At the end of the course they received a Foundation certificate in Pastoral Care (approved by the Diocese).

We then added a further eight optional specialist sessions.

These are helping people with dementia, teenagers and drugs and caring for young families.

LPAs who attended five of these sessions then received an Advanced Certificate in Pastoral Care. New developmentsThe original Foundation Course with a few minor changes ran until 2014 when it was decided to take a break and review the whole culture and process of how we better facilitate pastoral care.

The plan had mostly been achieved and there were LPAs in most parishes.

However there seemed to be a growing need for parishes to have their own in-house course or to band together with neighbouring parishes to run a course that could be tailored to their parish needs.

This seemed to be a sensible approach as there is immediately a sense of being a team, learning with people who they already know in a parish that they are familiar with. It is also possible to address specific parish issues within the course.

To this end a new course was devised that could be tailored to the parish need.

A first pilot course was run in October 2015 for 16 LPAs in the Benefice of Penn and Tylers Green together with colleagues from Chalfont St Giles and Beaconsfield.

The training facilitators were drawn from the three parishes. This new course is called Time to Care (Pastoral Care in the Parish) and runs over 5 sessions of 2¼ hours with an away day (9. 30am to 2. 30pm).

The sessions are as follows:Session 1: What is Pastoral Care and what do I have to offer?Session 2: Ways of communicating with those whom we visitSession 3: Making a visit - practical things to considerSession 4: Bereavement and lossSession 5: Working Responsibly and Safely as a Lay Pastoral Assistant (safeguarding)Session 6: Putting it all together (a time away to reflect on the learning)Session 5 is predominantly concerned with the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children and follows the diocesan guidelines for the training of volunteers in these areas.

As well as using diocesan material it also uses resources from the Buckinghamshire Safeguarding of Adults Board and the North Yorkshire Safeguarding of Children Board and has a quiz based assessment which students take at the end of the session. Each session of the pilot course was evaluated by the course members and we received positive feedback on each session.

The feedback allowed us to make a few minor changes to timings, style and format.

The new course will now be submitted to the Diocese to obtain approval and certification and the plan is to make the new course available to Deanery parishes from September. Contact Derrick Carr on carrd@btopenworld. com to find out more about the course and how it could help your parish, benefice or deanery. 'An excellent basic foundation' - what the volunteers say:THE Revd Jenny Tebboth completed the pastoral care course some years before she went forward for ordination training. Jenny, a curate at Chalfont St Giles, Seer Green and the Jordans, says the training helped her in her LPA role, but has also been invaluable in her ordained ministry.

"St Giles is a small church but with a strong pastoral team most of whom have done the course. "It's basic training but really useful and gives an excellent foundation for ministry.

It's about learning how to listen, how to leave a house in a timely manner after a visit, when it is appropriate to use touch". For Jenny's away day, she visited her nearest crematorium, which she says was really helpful.

"It familiarised me with what goes on behind the scenes at the crematorium so I can reassure people who are facing a funeral that they have some freedom to choose whether, for example, they want to use the curtains and also that they can be confident that their loved one will be treated with the greatest respect even when the family have gone home. "Steve and Debbie Taylor, who worship at St Margaret's Church in Tyler's Green, did the course last Autumn.

Steve said: "When we saw that Derrick was asking people to do the course we felt we really wanted to do it.

One of the main reasons was the listening element, which is something I have always found difficult.

The other things we wouldn't have known were about looking after your own safety, legal requirements and writing down where you have been, and the times etc. "One thing we both found really good was learning how to give people communion.

There are sets with bread and wine that have been blessed, and Derrick has prepared cards so we can do a form of the Communion service.

I thought it was lovely to be able to do that. "Debbie and Steve also visited the crematorium and found that really helpful.

Debbie said: "That was difficult for me as I'm from Northern Ireland where we only do burials.

It was hard for me to go to the crematorium but I'm glad I did as it put the fears I had into perspective.

It was good to go and see how it works to help people make decisions and help them through a bereavement. "