Training for Authorised Lay Ministers as Pastoral Assistants, to Facilitate Good and Safe Practice in General Pastoral Care within the Church and Community
Looking at ten different areas of need and different models of pastoral care
Contact missionandministry@elydiocese.org for more information or go to our Training Portal to sign up for future courses.
Course outline
Session 1: Introduction - Wellness and Flourishing
- We ask 'Why do people suffer? What is needed from us when we visit people?'.
- Pastoral Model - The Interpreter of Human Stories
Session 2: What is attentive listening?
- We look at the theory and practice of attentive listening.
- Pastoral Model - The Listener
Session 3: Disability
- 'Ordinary lives in unconventional bodies'. How do we facilitate change for people with disabilities?
- Pastoral Model - The Ascetic Witness
Session 4: Developing Healthy Relationships
- We look at this in the context of making, breaking, and restoring them.
- Pastoral Model - The Wounded Healer
Session 5: Families and How to Survive Them
- We look at the stresses and challenges in family relationships.
- Pastoral Model - The Midwife
Session 6: Failure in Love
- We seek to understand power dynamics, and finding ways to love without harm, or prejudice.
- Pastoral Model - The Good Samaritan
Session 7: Well-being and Mental Health
- Promoting resilience and building communities which can offer scaffolding to people.
- Pastoral Model - The Gardener
Session 8: Holding on and Letting go
- Considering bereavement, loss, and growth after trauma.
- Pastoral Model – The Clown
Session 9: Challenging a Rhetoric of Tragedy
- Seeking a flourishing life for those who are cognitively impaired and who have dementia.
- Pastoral Model - The Agent of Hope
Session 10: Transition and Moving On
- Change Happens while Transition is Made.
- Pastoral Model - The Good Shepherd
Hearing from an ALM
Chris Downes is a Pastoral ALM in Chatteris. Listen to what he says about his vocation and ministry and some of the stories he tells about what it’s like to be a Pastoral ALM in the Diocese of Ely.