Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

179television, play private games such as jigsaw puzzles, listen to music, spend timein their shared garden, sleep, or simply sit while seemingly staying with their ownthoughts. Sometimes pastoral visitation will include being with individualsamidst visits from the various medical professionals who tend to their diversedisability-derived medical needs. Routine visitation may be intentional in termsof planning to catch up with certain individuals from a particular accommodationor activity area. It may also be ad hoc in terms of the chaplain engaging with anindividual in an informal manner whilst moving around the institution.Pastoral visitation may also include engaging with individuals or groupsof people on special occasions that may be celebratory, traumatic or critical innature. The celebratory occasion could include being present with an individualat a birthday or Christmas party. The traumatic event could be concerned withengaging with someone at a time of bereavement for a friend who has recentlydied or at some other time of emotional unrest such as a dispute with a colleagueor staff member. The critical occasion may include spending time with a frailindividual, whose death is imminent, and their family members.5.6.2 Narrative StatusThe form of narrative to be discerned, described and reflected upon willbe constructed from a thorough, congregate perspective. The narratives representthe ‘strong threads’ of institutional life and of persons accommodated therein. Assuch, the behaviours, experiences, conversations, described presence andarticulated voices are those which are representative of various types of pastoralobservations and encounters, intentional and ad hoc.No narrative represents the telling of a literal recounting of any particularpersonal, pastoral encounter in the institutional context.No narrative represents the telling of a first-hand story by a person livingin the institution at the time.No narrative is the result of consultation or negotiation with any person orpersons whatsoever.The diversity of pastoral visitation experiences and observations leads tothe recording of a range of narratives that reflect the nature of institutional life forthe community of people with intellectual disability who live in this environment.It is through these multiple observations and, subsequently, the typological