Chaplaincies
Below you will find information about chaplaincy ministries avilable to parishes.
Hospital chaplaincy
Hospital chaplaincy presents an opportunity to minister to patients, staff and relatives and to be a prophetic voice within a secular institution.
It is at the cutting edge of ministry, often touching peoples' lives at times of great crisis and pain. Of the 400 whole time chaplains in the UK, there are 300 full time and 1500 part time chaplains.
Today hospital professionals are beginning to understand the importance a patient's spiritual life plays in their recovery or coping with a crisis.
Chaplains are part of the staff team and are appointed by the Hospital Trust. They have pastoral responsibility towards all patients and their relatives regardless of whether the patient is religious or not.
The size of the chaplaincy team varies. Cottage hospitals have part-time chaplains who are "on call" when they are not "on site". Larger hospitals have teams of chaplains representing the Anglican, Catholic and Free Church traditions. Patients who are members of other great world faith traditions can request to see their named spiritual advisor.
The Hospital Chaplain makes daily rounds and is available 24 hours a day to patients, family members and staff. Not being a conventional member of the healthcare team or of the patient's family, the Chaplain can objectively provide crisis intervention counseling and support.
In the often stressful and demanding hospital environment, the Chaplain is an understanding friend and confidant, who provides a listening ear and a pastoral point of view for the staff. Staff members who have no minister of their own often seek the Chaplain's counsel, especially during times of personal family need.
Prison Chaplaincy
Prision chaplaincy is committed to serving the needs of prisoners, staff and faith communities.
Chaplains from a wide range of faith traditions work with the Prison Service, including Buddhist, Church of England, Free Church, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Sikh. Chaplains are appointed on the basis of their skills and competences and to meet the need of prisons and their particular population. The nature of the work to be done will also determine whether to appoint a permanent employee or engage a Chaplain on a fee paid basis.
Airport Chaplaincy
Manchester Airport's chaplain, the Revd Kevin Ball, heads up a chaplaincy that serves 20,000 staff.
Kevin came to Manchester from Nottinghamshire last October, where he was a parish priest and also chaplain to the county’s Fire and Rescue service and the Army Cadet Force.
As chaplain, he provides support, care and counselling to a staff equivalent in number to the population of Rochdale. This involves providing a listening ear to employees who may have no one else to talk things through with.
Kevin said, "We are there to show that someone cares, whether a staff member has a faith or none. The chaplaincy provides support that is private, discrete and independent of the airport’s employers.
"Here at the airport, we are with people day by day in their working environment, sharing with them their joys and sorrows, allowing them to explore their faith, if they want to, or just to talk. It is the best example of mission-shaped church I can think of.
Kevin and his team also provide care and assistance to passengers. "This can range from helping a confused passenger, providing onward travel costs when passengers have no money, through to meeting family members to tell them about a death or accompanying their deceased love ones on repatriation to this country."
Kevin trains a crisis response team to be on standby in case of a major emergency. He runs courses for airlines and works with the police and airport security to help them respond in culturally sensitive ways.
"We recently helped people returning from the Caribbean who were caught up in Hurricane Wilma. We met 14 flights and handed out tracksuits to people who had nothing except the clothes on their backs. It was a very steep learning curve for me to see the problems that passengers can face."
Providing cover for the airport is an enormous task in which Kevin is assisted by one assistant chaplain (one day a week) a part-time pastoral coordinator and three associate chaplains, one of whom is a Muslim cleric.
For more information on the chaplaincy, visit www.thechaplaincy-manchesterairport.co.uk.
Army Chaplaincy
For centuries the Royal Army Chaplains' Department (RAChD) has ministered to soldiers in times of peace and war. We are proud to provide spiritual leadership, moral guidance and pastoral support to all soldiers and their families, irrespective of religion or belief.
Members of the RAChD are all fully ordained ministers sent into the Army with the authority of our various sending Churches. The wealth and diversity of experience that each chaplain brings helps create a department that is continually evolving at the cutting edge of multi-denominational and multi-faith ministry. Working together as a team lies at the heart of what it means to be an Army chaplain.
FE/HE Chaplaincy
The further education (FE/HE) sector is growing rapidly within the UK today. There are currently 410 further education colleges in the UK and about half of these have some chaplaincy provision. FE chaplains have a key role to play in this work.
The DfES and the Learning and Skills Council are strongly supporting this work and a Handbook on FE chaplaincy is to be produced next year with joint funding. NEAFE (the National Ecumenical Agency in FE) is the organisation which has been working for 25 years in the sector, and has an excellent web site (http://www.neafe.org) which should be accessed by all who wish to know more of the churches' work in this important sector.
Chaplaincy in Further Education is a growing ministry, usually in the form of ecumenical, and increasingly, multi-faith teams. But, as this report of a questionnaire demonstrates, it is far from established as 'normal' provision, and there is much for the church to do to promote involvement in this important work, meeting the needs of young people 16-19 and many adults.
Chaplain for deaf people
The Chaplain among Deaf People is the contact point for anyone who is Deaf, hard of hearing or deafened in Manchester Diocese. In Manchester, there are monthly services at deaf clubs, and in mental health units for Deaf people which are conducted in British Sign Language.
There are also Deaf/hearing integrated services at some hearing churches which are conducted in both speech and sign language, visits to Deaf people in prison, hospitals and schools.
The Chaplain can also give advice to priests who have a deaf or deafened person in their congregation, or what to do if a Deaf person wants a wedding, baptism or a funeral.
Hospice Chaplaincy
Within the Hospice movement, an exciting recent development has been the recognition that everyone contributes to spiritual care on different levels, from informal acts of kindness and consideration, to the caring attitudes and practice of volunteers and staff, to Chaplains who are generally available to all, as well as ensuring people have the support of their religious belief.
Hospices aim to be places responding to those with progressive or terminal illness, with an immense pastoral and human care, mixed with enormous optimism about life and the future. Within the geographical area covered by the Diocese of Wakefield are 5 Hospices, each of which make provision for the services of Chaplains.
Chaplaincy teams are available to patients and Day Hospice visitors, to relatives and friends and staff, regardless of whether or not a person would see themselves as religious. It is also possible to make contact with representatives of other World Faiths.
more here
University Chaplaincy
St Peter's provides chaplaincy to all the universities in Manchester. A team of chaplains is based here and there will always be one chaplain available at St Peter's on weekdays during term time. We are sponsored by the Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, and United Reformed Church denominations.
