Spirituality and Spiritual Care

Spirituality and Spiritual Care

SPIRITUALITY AND SPIRITUAL CARE

This short CPD course for Health, Social Care and Allied Health Professionals is available to study at your own pace and time. 

With easy access to materials and interactive participative learning, you will learn how to address the personal, religious and spiritual beliefs of clients as part of person-centered holistic care.

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Addressing peoples spiritual care needs is increasingly being recognised as important in health and social care globally. This programme will provide you with the knowledge and skills required in your person-centered care practice.

The aims of this programme will help you to:

  • Consider the competencies practiced within a compassionate relationship and founded in a person-centered and reflective attitude of openness, presence and trust.
  • Treat people in a holistic way that has been shown to enhance recovery, quality of life, and potential to live independent, happy and fulfilled lives.
  • Support them in finding meaning, purpose, value and connection in the midst of life changing events such as illness, uncertainty, sadness and loss

This interactive on-line course is centered around the EPICC Spiritual Care Education Standard and its 4 spiritual care competencies.

Be aware of the importance of spirituality on health and wellbeing.

  • Engage with persons' spirituality, acknowledging their unique spiritual and cultural worldviews, beliefs and practices.
  • Assess spiritual needs and resources using appropriate formal or informal approaches, and plans spiritual care, maintaining confidential and obtaining informed consent. 
  • Respond to spiritual needs and resources within a caring, compassionate relationship

  • Module 1: Drivers for spirituality & spiritual care: an international perspective. Identifies who is calling for spirituality to be included within health & social care: policy makers; professional regulatory bodies; patients and carers; health & social care professionals.
  • Module 2: Intrapersonal spirituality. Understanding what ‘spirituality’ and ‘spiritual care’ mean, the impact of one’s own values and beliefs on care provision, life changing events as a trigger to the spiritual, self-care.
  • Module 3: Interpersonal spirituality. Engaging with peoples’ spirituality, acknowledging their unique spiritual and cultural worldviews, beliefs, and practices.
  • Module 4: Assessment & planning. Assessing spiritual needs and resources using formal and informal approaches and planning spiritual care.
  • Module 5: Intervention & evaluation. Responding to spiritual needs and resources and evaluating the outcome. Documentation, referral, working with others, the spiritual care specialist, ethical issues, personal/professional limitations, compassionate presence.
  • Module 6: Next steps. Looking ahead & further professional development. Focuses on applying the course content to your practice and professional development.

This course is for nurses, midwives, nursing associates, social prescribers and other allied health and care professionals working worldwide.

This course is £65.00

Studying a short CPD course at the University of South Wales has a number of benefits, it is a flexible way to progress in your career field of choice, further your knowledge and gain recognition. 

The whole programme consists of 6 modules that you can enroll in individually or all together. Each module takes between 30 minutes and 90 minutes to complete. The programme is available on a digital platform that can be accessed anytime, making learning flexible to fit in to your schedule. 

Short Assessments to check learning are built in throughout, with an end of course assessment which, on completion, will offer you a digital credential of your CPD portfolio. This CPD Online only course provides 7 hours of learning, where you can learn at your own pace to fit around busy work schedules. To register your interest and for further information please complete our enquiry form. 

Course Tutor - Professor Linda Ross

Linda Ross is a Professor of Nursing specialising in spirituality at the University of South Wales. Her PhD in 1992 was the first in Europe to explore nurses’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care which she published as a book in 1997. In addition to the joint work with Professor McSherry outlined below she contributed to the spiritual care guidance which accompanies the Welsh Government’s Health and Care Standards (2015) and she chairs the Spirituality, Health, and Wellbeing in NHS & Social Care Wales (SHaW) group which advises Welsh Government on spiritual, faith, beliefs and pastoral matters in relation to health services across Wales. Her collaborative research has resulted in spiritual care education becoming mandatory for all pre-registration nurses, midwives and allied health professions in Wales; the research underpins the curricula. Linda is also an editor for ‘Health & Social Care Chaplaincy’ and Lay Executive Board Member of the UK Board of Health & Social Care Chaplaincy. 

REF ICS Author Linda Ross

Course tutor - Professor Wilfred McSherry

Wilfred McSherry is a Professor in Nursing, Department of Nursing, School of Health, Science and Wellbeing, Staffordshire University, England. He has held joint appointments with the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, Staffordshire and was a part-time Professor at VID University College, Bergen, Norway. He has had a career in nursing spanning over 30 years focusing primarily on acute care advocating dignity, spirituality especially in the care of older people and those receiving end of life care. He has published extensively in the field of spirituality and is one of the most cited nursing authors in this area. As part of his early research, he developed the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS) that has been used in many international studies and translated into several languages. In 2010 he led on a survey for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) exploring members perceptions of spirituality which led to the development of the RCN training resources mentioned below. He is currently working with colleagues in the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (South Australia) Branch replicating the RCN survey. He is a Principal Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (now AdvanceHE). In 2012 he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing for his unique contribution to nursing in the areas of spirituality and dignity.  

Wilfred McSherry Staffs UNI

Linda & Wilf:

Are Directors, Trustees, and Founding members for the International Network for the Study of Spirituality (INSS, formerly BASS), a unique international interdisciplinary network for people of interested in bringing the study of spirituality to life through research, scholarship, education and practice.

Are Co-Editors in Chief for INSS’s affiliated ‘Journal for the Study of Spirituality’.

Co-led the EPICC Project to establish best practice in spiritual care nurse education across Europe (EPICC Project www.epicc-network.org) and they are founding members of the EPICC Network which Linda Chairs. The Network provides a place for health care professionals passionate about spiritual care education to share best practice and collaborate on joint projects and research.