ACC Accord Summer 2021 Issue 111

Meeting the Challenge,
Providing the Opportunity
PC-UK Pastoral Support Group Pilot
by Teresa Onions
CHALLENGE
At a recent Pastoral Care UK
Open Forum, panellists and
forum members considered the
contemporary challenges and
opportunities facing pastoral
carers as we move from pandemic
lockdown into a new world.
The challenge of caring for others
through a time when there has
and continues to be so much need,
when our usual human connection
has been severely disrupted, when
our safety and security has been
significantly threatened, when
complex loss has produced so
much suffering, when mental
health has and continues to be
widely compromised and on a
precipice, when the prevalence of
injustice at so many levels and in
so many ways, for so many people
has emerged beyond the tip of the
iceberg and when some of us are
now rethinking how we do church
and apply our personal faith, is
evident among many of us.
The challenge of caring for the
carers has also been evident
through stories of carers
throughout the pandemic. To
illustrate (using fictious names):-
Katie who had had Covid and was
suffering from long Covid herself,
felt she was a ‘failure’ because she
had not been able to respond as
she would have wished to, to those
she had pastoral care concern for
in the church. She felt she had
let these people down and was
burdened with guilt.
Debra had accumulated many
people on her weekly ring round
list, some of whom had become
quite dependent on her in their
isolation and losses and who were
spending more time wanting to
talk. She was struggling not only
with the fear of making the right
response but also with boundaries,
exhaustion and feelings of
resentfulness, as the calls were
taking up so much time.
Ian was overwhelmed by the
poverty, despair and injustices in
his deprived neighbourhood to
the point of being ‘paralysed’ into
inaction and confused about where
God was in all this.
The BIG challenge in all this is to
look at how we might look after
our failures, guilt, fears, boundaries,
exhaustion, resentments, paralyses,
confusion and faith in a way
which keeps us healthy enough to
sustain our pastoral care of others
and indirectly, but nevertheless
importantly, contributes to the
overall health of the church
community?
OPPORTUNITY
The opportunity for counsellors
to receive regular support for their
work, through clinical supervision,
is inherently built into their Code
of Ethics and Practice i.e. it is
recognised as important enough
to be mandatory. It is here that the
counsellor’s practice can be kept
safe and effective, where difficult
feelings can be processed, where
new perspectives can be gained
and where encouragement can be
received.
The opportunity for pastoral
carers to receive regular support
for their work on the other hand, is
recommended but not mandatory,
may not always be understood or
seen as a priority and may not be
easy to access.
NEW OPPORTUNITY
A Core Group of us in PC-UK have
therefore been exploring how we
might enable our pastoral care
members to learn about and access
a place of regular support to meet
the challenges of their work as we
emerge from Lockdown.
As part of that exploration we
have undertaken a broad piece
of research with our individual
and affiliate members. Members
were invited to complete a short
questionnaire to ascertain what
levels and type of pastoral support
they currently had access to. They
were also asked if they would like to
be involved in an online, facilitated
Pastoral Support Group with 3
online basic Training Sessions
covering Self-Care, Reflective
Practice and a Pastoral Support
Group, to precede this. The results
are published here.
20 accord Summer 2021 www.acc-uk.org • www.pastoralcareuk.org