MBE for a Cambridgeshire Parish Nurse 

May 2007 - Sue Evans MBE, District Nursing Sister, Parish Nurse.

Not everyone has had the privilege of shaking hands with Her Majesty, The Queen!! 

On Wednesday, the 16th of May, I was one of 94 people who attended an Investiture at Buckingham Palace. 22 of these events are held each year, 20 in London, one at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh & one at Cardiff Castle.

The Queen entered the Ballroom accompanied by two Gurkha Orderly Officers who were at the double. Also on duty were members of The Queen’s Body Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard, in their striped uniforms, and the Lord Chamberlain.

In spite of all the formality, the atmosphere was very friendly, with everyone telling you to enjoy yourself & not be nervous! 

I certainly felt a bit overawed when, halfway up the Grand Staircase, I had to go off to the right while my guests carried on up into the Ballroom. I joined all the other recipients and we were instructed as to what we had to do when presented. 

We were then left to watch a film of one of last years Investitures & practice our curtsies!
We were called through to the ceremony in groups of about 15, I was in the third group and, by the time that I was in a queue with only 3 people ahead of me, I was very nervous. I then discovered that the lady behind me had family in the next village so I reflected on what a small world it is! 

Then it was my turn! I walked forward to stand beside the Lord Chamberlain who whispered “I will tap you when it is time to move.” At this signal I took 3 paces forward, turned, curtsied, then forward another 3 paces & I was standing in front of The Queen. She took my award, the MBE, from a velvet cushion, pinned it on my chest and said “ I understand you are a district nurse?” What an opportunity! “Yes, Ma’am, but I am also a Parish Nurse, working within the Church of England.” 

She then asked if I had been nursing a long time to which I agreed! She offered me her hand & I noticed that her handshake include a slight pressure backwards to remind me that I had to walk backwards 3 paces before curtsying again. I was then led around to the back of the ballroom so that I could join the other recipients as we watched the rest of the ceremony. The whole thing was accompanied by the Orchestra of the Scots Guards who played a very varied selection of music. 

At the end of the ceremony The Queen was again accompanied by the Gurkhas as she left the Ballroom but the rest of the members of the Royal Household stayed as we joined our guests again. Then it was out into the sunshine in the Inner Quadrangle for the official photographs. And then we found ourselves outside Buckingham Palace with all the tourists looking through the railings AT US!! So we gave them a royal wave before leaving! What a day!  It still seems like a fairy tale but the photos show that it really happened..

Sue Evans MBE

Mission visit to Bungoma, Western Kenya. Feb 27^th to March 6^th  2007

Participants:               Mrs Debbie Marsh, Oakham Parish, Parish Nurse and Lay Reader
                                    Miss Lesley Johnson, St Mark’s, Wellingborough, Parish Nurse
                                    Dr. Thandiwe Dlamini, Swaziland Parish Nurse Tutor/Coordinator  (R/C)
                                    Revd. Helen Wordsworth, Regional minister/Mission Enabler, 
                                    Central Baptist Association and Coordinator, Parish Nursing Ministries UK

Background and Purpose of Visit:  

Debbie Marsh and Lesley Johnson live and work in the Diocese of Peterborough, which is twinned with the Diocese of Bungoma. Helen Wordsworth works closely with the Church Leaders of Peterborough Diocese. She is also a member of the World Forum for Parish Nursing, which seeks to promote and develop the concept across various contexts and cultures. 

Debbie Marsh had visited the area in October 2006 with the aim of getting to know and encourage the nurses there. She wanted to return on a regular basis to fulfil this commitment. On her first visit she had identified a real interest in the concept of Parish Nursing, and so she asked Lesley and Helen to accompany her to explore whether or not the principles of Parish Nursing could be contextualised for Bungoma, and if so, how this might be taken forward. 

Through her World Forum work, Helen had met Thandiwe, who had pioneered Parish Nursing in Swaziland, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and the team decided to invite her to join them so that a genuine African perspective could be contributed.

In addition, the team would visit a variety of Kenyan churches that were linked or that wanted to be linked with Parishes in Peterborough Diocese, and would exchange news and greetings to and from the linked churches. Northamptonshire Baptists had some informal links through their neighbouring Anglican churches and more formal connections were in place through Emmanuel Northampton and West Haddon Baptist Church.

Itinerary

The team met up at Nairobi airport, then took a small plane to Kisumu, where they were met by Archdeacon the Venerable George Mechuma  with Driver Amos in the St Crispins reconditioned bus.  The three hour journey to Bungoma from there through the Sugar plantation area was extremely bumpy due to the poor condition of the roads.  We stayed throughout the trip in the Bungoma Countryside Hotel, the best available in the diocese. The plumbing and the electricity were a little unreliable but at least they were present. Food and drink were available there too, mostly scrambled egg, omelettes, sausage and bananas, morning and night. There was usually tea to drink, or Coke/Fanta. 

    Each day we left Bungoma in the bus to visit villages and Parishes two to three hours drive into the countryside. (14 villages in all) These roads were not tarmacked at all, and the journeys were like being on a roller-coaster, but Amos was a wonderful driver and the bus did not let us down. George was a great comedian, a very wise guide, a deeply spiritual man, and an able administrator.  Bishop Eliud was an inspiring leader, who welcomed us warmly and found time to entertain us twice even in the midst of a very busy schedule.

 Everywhere we visited there were elders and officials waiting to greet us and to talk with us about progress with church and community projects. And everywhere we were given a traditional African welcome…songs from the children, chairs to sit on, and food;  bananas, plain biscuits, rice, maize, cabbage and stew, with Coke or Fanta to drink. Each of us was asked to bring a short message of encouragement to every place that we visited, translated into Swahili.  And on the Sunday morning, Helen was asked to preach at the morning service.

All journeys, all meals, all meetings, would begin and end with prayer.  

On the first day of the visit George took Helen to meet the Baptist minister at Bungoma. He was a leader in the local association of 60 Baptist churches. His interest in Parish Nursing was very keen, and he gathered others together to talk with Helen about it. 

On the fourth day of the visit, Saturday, George had planned that we should hold a day conference on Parish nursing.  This was attended by 25 people, Anglicans, Baptists and Pentecostals, and the report of it follows this report

We are deeply grateful to the learnt so much throughout the visit but here are a few key points, relevant both to devotional life and to Parish Nursing. 

Faith

1.       Corporate prayer is much more a part of daily life there than in the UK. All of us took part in this at least eight times a day on average.  

2.       Attendance at Church is around 80% of the population, though a lesser number would attend regularly, or be actively involved.  Evangelists go out to the villages to plant new churches, often without buildings at first. But church buildings are seen as very important in a context where the mud houses are small and crowded. When a church building is up, a manse is built, and then a school and/or a clinic.

3.       The denominations doing the most community work seem to be Catholic, Anglican, Salvation Army, Friends, and Baptists.

4.       Aids remains a very controversial subject in the churches. While some sympathetic attitudes were expressed, it was mostly not mentioned, and at one point we heard antagonism towards and rejection of people with Aids.

5.       There is some resistance to medical intervention arising from a theological understanding that if one has enough faith, and if the church prays hard enough, a sick person will get well without the need for any therapy. 

 Health

1.   The government now funds the primary schools, and their own government health clinics, but these are still few and far between, and the poor condition of the roads means that it is difficult for ill people to reach them.  

2         Aids is taking its toll, evident in the number of orphans. These tend to be lodged with other families, but often do not get the attention that their own children get. Enabling the orphans to get education and training for work is a major challenge.

3         The understanding of Aids as a condition that could be managed was limited…most people thought a person would die from Aids, not from the complications of it. We heard that Aids was highest in the Sugar plantation areas and at Kisumu, where people were slightly better off.

4         There are many street children, who have opted out of school and some of these would also be orphans. They live on begging and stealing. These children are having their own children, also living on the streets…street families.   

5         Lack of sanitation, poverty and ignorance still cause many unnecessary diseases.

6         The attitude to health is very much a sickness-orientated approach; When you get sick you go to the clinic that has the most drugs.  Or to a traditional healer. We found clinics that were built but not operative due to lack of drugs. And others that were not well-attended because it was believed that they did not have enough drugs.  We also found that churches believed they could not be involved in health care unless they had a clinic building, a nurse and a full supply of drugs.

7         The hospital in Bungoma had been funded through Finland. It was excellent, though very busy, with highly qualified and able staff, good facilities, and extension plans. But the poor state of the roads and the poverty of the people meant that for many people the journey to hospital was just too far, and the cost of hospital treatment too much.

8         Most nurses work in the hospital and there is very little if any home visiting. 

Education           

1.       Education is free at primary level and the schools are extremely well disciplined. The teachers are deeply committed and the mottos/mission statements/results posted around the schools urge everyone to higher achievement. Secondary education is not yet free. Those who undertake it aspire to University but that is very expensive. 

2.       Nurse training is currently at two levels, Certificate (equivalent to Enrolled Nurse) and Diploma. Certificate is being phased out. Nurse training is expensive.. Private clinics and Mission clinics train their own Nurse-Aides to run clinics and these are often very experienced girls but they lack education and are extremely isolated.

 How could Parish Nursing help?

 Parish Nursing is whole-person health care through the local church. It challenges 

·         nurses to reclaim the Spiritual dimension of health care

·         health care systems to treat the patient as a whole, and  

·         churches to restore the health and healing mission of the gospel,  even when that means accepting our limitations and learning to serve others through them.   

The Parish nurse forms a link between the community and the church, between the doctor and the pastor. Between those in need of help and those who would volunteer to give it.  

Traditionally, Churches in Kenya have offered health care as part of their mission programmes, so in some senses they are more advanced in this than in the UK, but we found there were several things that could be addressed through the training of qualified nurses as Parish Nurses . 

1.       The churches need to be encouraged to see what can be done even when drugs are not available. The presence of a Parish Nurse in an area could facilitate the training of volunteers in community health. The church influence in the community is much greater than in the UK so this could have a major impact on lifestyle.

2.       The nurse-aides need to be networked and encouraged. If the qualified nurses in the churches were given the responsibility of encouraging and acting as mentors for a small number of named Nurse Aides, (and linked to them by mobile phone) they could ensure that adequate support was available. Together they could also participate in the training of  church community health volunteers. This networking could be cross-denominational.

3.       Aids education is much needed, not least in the churches.  Parish Nurses in Swaziland have made major progress with this, and a similar emphasis could be adopted for the training of Kenyan Parish Nurses.

4.       Home visiting for health monitoring is virtually non-existent. This could be very beneficial for early detection of treatable diseases. Parish Nurses could train the nurse-aides and public health workers to do this.

5.       Prayer already forms an important part of everyday life. Parish Nurses could find ways of combining this with appropriate treatments and health education. They would work alongside evangelists and clergy in the churches.

6.       The number of Government health clinics is growing, and to some extent this is competing with the drug-reliant church clinics and endangering their sustainability.  A way of maintaining the link between health and faith needs to be found, and this could be done through personal health advice, through voluntary home visiting and through health advocacy by church based health workers.

7.       Churches need to be helped to participate in the care of individuals in their communities who are suffering…even if it is through Aids.

8.       There is much bereavement pain through the Aids epidemic, and as a result of deaths through malarial disease.  Parish Nurses could train bereavement counsellors who could be of great support in the communities. 

9.       A key Kenyan Parish Nurse leader could be identified and encouraged to join the World Forum for Parish nursing and thereby access and contribute to the experience of others in similar environments. He/ she would take on the development of and education for Parish Nursing in Bungoma Diocese and maybe across Kenya.

10.   Mobile clinics could be developed by the churches to reach the more remote areas. Parish Nurse involvement in this would help to ensure that the work of these is wholistic, and not biased simply towards the administration of drugs.  

We ran a day conference on Parish Nursing on Saturday March 3^rd, by kind invitation of the proprietor of the Bungoma Countryside Hotel.  25 people attended, some having even travelled 2 hours on extremely bumpy roads to get there. We encountered very keen enthusiasm for the concept.

 Proposals:   The Bungoma Baptist Association have put together a proposal for health care work incorporating Parish Nursing, in which they stated that they would like to do this in partnership with the Anglicans Diocese of Bungoma. Archdeacon George was present at the meeting to hear this and convey it.  He will also produce a proposal for the delivery of a 7 day Parish Nurse basic preparation course and simultaneous public health worker course with costings.

A copy of this report will be taken to BMS World Mission and CMS to gain their advice on how the proposed work should be funded and undertaken. 

We will also report to the World Forum for Parish Nursing, as we believe that this project could contribute much to the knowledge base and contextualisation of Parish Nursing across the world. 

Conclusion:  The team felt that they had learnt much from their visit, not only in exploring the validity of Parish nursing in an alternative context, but also in establishing deeper links between the Diocesan Parishes and the Baptist churches, both in Bungoma and in the UK.   Thandiwe had gained further insight into the interaction between faith and health within an African perspective and  across denominations.

We had all benefited from exposure to a greater involvement with corporate prayer, and we also learnt much from our discussions with the nurses, with George, and with one another.

We are deeply grateful to those who made it possible for us to go by their donations and encouragement.  And to God for His grace, for keeping us all well, for teaching us so much and for enabling every moment of our trip.

 Helen Wordsworth, March 11^th 2007. 

Church Times Article, September 1st 2006
Reproduced by kind permission. 

Nurses with a difference 
By Pat Ashworth 

THE NURSE is on a care call to an elderly woman who has lost touch with the outside world, and who needs to find the motivation and courage to go out again. 

It's something the doctor can't help with, and he knows it. The patient does not need injections and dressings, but support, and with her agreement he refers her case to the parish nurse from the local church. Help can then be given that includes prayer as well as practical advice on health.

Many more church ministry teams could be enriched in this way after the launch this month of Parish Nursing Ministries UK, a charitable company enabling registered and specially trained nurses to work with their church congregations in promoting a holistic gospel message. 

"We're getting a lot of interest. The idea of whole-person nursing linked to the local church is very exciting," says the Revd Helen Wordsworth, the co-ordinator for Parish Nursing Ministries UK, and a regional minister with 150 churches. 

Parish nurses in the United States have had ministries such as this, concerning the body and the soul, for the past 20 years. The movement has spread to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. A UK group was formed in 2001 at the invitation of Dr Malcolm Rigler, a Midlands GP and health-policy adviser, who was concerned about the spiritual care of patients in the community, and a Baptist minister and former nurse tutor, Mrs Wordsworth. A small beginning then grew to a multi-disciplinary conference addressed by Phyllis Ann Solari-Twadell, a Chicago parish nurse.

Parish nurses are appointed by a church to give health and spiritual care. "The church is looking for holistic ways of reaching out both in mission and in the NHS for some way of addressing spiritual care," said Mrs Wordsworth.

"What's special about the Christian expression of faith-community nursing is that it comes directly from the ministry of Jesus, which is about holistic health - sending people out to preach and to heal. There's a real, absolute core theology of health within Christian understanding, and that gives us a very deep basis to develop parish nursing." 

Parish nursing is not just about dressings and injections, the movement emphasises, but is concerned with health education and promotion, faith and health counselling, and advocacy.

KEY MEMBERS of the Parish Nursing Ministries UK steering group are Lynda Bickley, a former director of nursing education, and the Revd Debbie Hodge, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland's Free Church secretary for health chaplaincy. "It's a bringing together of theology and health, and spiritual and physical care, in a way that is counter to the trend of separation that happened when the NHS came into being," says Mrs Wordsworth. 

Eight UK pilot projects were of interest to GPs and Primary Care Trusts. Many of them identify parish nursing as a way of contacting hard-to-reach groups. "GPs have a lot of people who ring up for an appointment when all they need is encouragement and a chat with someone, possibly a parish nurse. It's a complementary function to what happens in a GP's surgery." On one pilot project, a Church Army nurse is working as nurse-chaplain to the surgery and staff: others are working in areas such as nutrition education, prevention of falls for the elderly, and blood-pressure screening. There are now about 26 pilot projects running nationally. 

The public launch of the charity not only celebrates the groundwork of the past three years, but acknowledges a willingness to work on a wider, national level. 

Anglicans and Baptists currently predominate, but churches of many denominations, including the Salvation Army, are getting involved in setting up schemes. Five UK conferences and regional initiatives have produced 30 parish nurses so far. The introductory training course is available twice a year. 

Parish nurses follow the professional code of conduct laid down by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and must be currently registered with them. They may also need to do a Back to Nursing course to be eligible to practice. They also need to have community experience, although not necessarily community nursing experience.
Working within the Nursing and Midwifery Council code of conduct is intended to protect the public from poor practice. "We have worked to establish good relations with this, and various other NHS bodies, because we really want this to be quality from the very beginning," says Mrs Wordsworth. "It needs to be something rooted in health promotion, self-care, and the prevention of complications. And spiritual care isn't just an add-on, but is integral to the care we offer."

The steering group has taken the eight categories of the Common Assessment Framework used by a number of different Primary Care Trusts as a tool for assessing individuals or families, and has given a spiritual element to its model of care. "We haven't wanted to add a ninth category, to ask: 'What religion are you?'" Mrs Wordsworth says. "We have looked at each of the eight categories to find out what questions would help us talk to the patient about the spiritual side of things. 

                                 
Pioneers: above, left to right: 
a parish nurse, Elizabeth Welch, the Revd Helen Wordsworth, and Madeleine Watts


"When it comes to family relationships, for example, we wouldn't just ask, 'How do you get on with people in your family?', but: 'Have there been any attempts at forgiveness or reconciliation within the family? Do you want to take any steps down that road, and if so, how might that happen?' Prayer often comes into it: a lot of people say they would like someone to pray for them." 

It is always made clear to clients and patients that parish nurses are employed by, or appointed from, the church. For that reason, they may expect to be asked questions about the spiritual. "You have the freedom to talk about things rather more freely." But the idea is religion is not pushed, and those who wish to have an alternative form of spiritual help can be referred to people from their own faith or denomination. Confidentiality is assured. Permission to pass something on - even to the vicar - is always asked. Every nurse is assigned a professional mentor and a spiritual mentor, to oversee his or her work. 

SOME pilot projects have managed to attract funding, enabling parish nurses to work full-time. Other nurses are part-time, or carry out unpaid ministry alongside their paid work. Madeleine Watts, a ward sister at Stockport Hospital and a member of the congregation at St Saviour's, Great Moor, works on this basis. She finds that her new ministry is warmly welcomed by the congregation and by the community.

"I became a nurse late in life, but found it was difficult to do Christian nursing," she reflects. "I could be a Christian nurse on the ward, but there are so many constraints. You do silent prayer in hospital, for instance, but you don't suggest praying together. I knew I was searching for something, but didn't know what it was." 
Madeleine, who had been on the Church of England's Foundation for Ministry course, read about the UK version of parish nursing and felt it was everything she was look-ing for. Greatly encouraged by her vicar, Canon Diane Cookson, she completed a residential training course. 

Over a period of 18 months, the pilot scheme at St Saviour's has developed a core team of seven health professionals and others from the congregation. There is now a health and faith care room at the church, and there are blood pres-sure sessions after services; healthy eating challenges for Lent; individual visits; and personalised prayer-cards. A chiropodist on the team offers foot health in the context of fitness for the journey of life. Madeleine says: "It's just grown, and is so well received by the con-gregation. Now it's slowly, very slowly, moving into the community." 

Elizabeth Welch, a former NHS nurse and a pastoral assistant at Westbourne Park Baptist Church, in Paddington, was already familiar with pastoral work that included health advice. "Because I was a nurse, people asked me things they wouldn't ask their church leaders." But she was supported wholeheartedly by her church when she came back, inspired, from a regional parish nursing conference in Croydon. "It just felt completely right," she says. 

Since April, she has been working full-time: two days in the church, and three in the community centre. Initiatives include drop-in sessions for general health checks, and a healthy-lifestyle support group. "When I asked what we could offer people struggling with weight management, they said: somewhere they could talk about what was really going on in their lives," said Elizabeth. "Weight Watchers was fine, but there was no space to say, 'I've had a really bad week because . . .'" Her ministry is evolving all the time. In the autumn a health professionals' forum will begin meeting for prayer and support. 

                               
a US-based parish nurse ministers to a sick and elderly couple who refuse hospitalisation

The former chief nurse at the Department of Health, the Revd Dame Sarah Mullally - about to take up her new post as Team Rector of Sutton - is also a member of the steering group, and has a strategic view of how nursing and health care have been moving forward. She has been able to give parish nursing access to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and has spoken to organisations such as Marie Curie Cancer Care and Macmillan, to see what can be learned from them about supporting nurses in home settings.

Dame Sarah believes that parish nursing has a strong future. "We can't separate our spirituality from our health. Parish nursing offers an opportunity for nurses to sup-port individuals, their health, and their spirituality." She suggests that it will need the support of churches and the Health Service if it is to succeed. 
"There are a surprising number of nurses who move into ordained ministry, but also a lot of nurses who have a spiritual awareness themselves. What we have lacked in the past is the opportunity, as nurses, to use our spiritual understanding, and at times the Church doesn't use us well, as people who have a health understanding. This is a real opportunity to bring the two together." 

Their difficulty in obtaining funds or getting their work published is frustrating, Mrs Wordsworth says. This is principally because grant-making bodies, universities, and publishers think along boundary lines between health and theology. 
"It has to be one or the other as far as they're concerned," she says. "What we are trying to do is integrate them, because we see the wholeness that Jesus offers. We're pioneering here, and the ground is very hard."

NEWSLETTER - 2006

Launched in style!
Among the guests attending the launch in Hothorpe Hall, Leicestershire in September 2006, were Dr Malcolm Rigler, GP and founding member of the Steering Group; Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, formerly chief nurse at the Department of Health and now Team Rector of Sutton; Rev Deborah Patterson, Executive Director of the International Parish Nursing Resource Centre, St Louis, USA and Rt Rev Frank White, Bishop of Brixworth. 

The Bishop, in his keynote address, spoke of today’s great need for those who will listen deeply and discern astutely what is going on in people’s lives, eventually to help them negotiate their own spiritual journey and enable their human wellbeing to flourish.

First UK Symposium
The launch evening was followed on Monday by the first UK Symposium of Parish Nursing Ministries UK, with presentations offering vivid and varied reflection on culture, society, the nursing profession, Christian ministry, community needs, government priorities, and spiritual wellbeing. 

Baptist Minister Nigel Ford reflected in his paper that todays’ trend towards medicalisation of health care can undermine wellbeing. Quoting Ivan Illich he said “Medicalisation has deprived people of their ability to cope with sickness and death” and suggested parish nurse ministry may offer an antedote. “Parish Nurses have a willingness to be present when little can be done to fix things” said Deborah Patterson, Executive Director of the International Parish Nurse Resource Centre, St Louis

The 2007 symposium will take place at Hothorpe Hall, Leicestershire on 16th and 17th September.

World Forum
Parish Nursing is now developing in a growing number of counties around the world including USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Interest is also being shown in Brazil and Nigeria.

At the 2006 Westberg symposium Helen Wordsworth and Debbie Hodge participated in the further development of a world forum for the contextulisation of the concept in different cultures.

International exchanges have already taken place and a further group of parish nurses from Chicago are planning to come to the UK in September 2007.

Parish Nurses and Co-ordinators
37 nurses are now trained and working in around 30 projects with, in some cases, 2 or 3 nurses at one project. 

These nurses come form a variety of denominations including Baptist, Church of England, Methodist, Salvation Army, Independent, Pentecostal and Catholic Churches.

Thanks to a grant from the Anchor Foundation we have been able to start our programme for appointing regional co-ordinators who will develop and promote Parish Nursing with Churches of all denominations across their areas. 

We can offer day conferences as well as individual conversations with churches. 

To enquire about the possibility of either of these please contact 
Helen Wordsworth, UK co-ordinator at: 
3, BarnwellClose
Dunchurch,
Rugby,
Warwickshire
CV22 6QH
01788 817292

Nifty 60's Exercise Class

This exercise class for the over 60's started up recently at Bethany Baptist Church in Risca with seven people attending the first session. 

We have an 'extend' instructor named Trudi, who takes them through a range of gentle exercise to music, and she has them in stitches with her stories, We now have fifteen members attending on a regular basis and there is still room for more. Some of the exercises are done sitting on a chair and some standing. Trudi brings a range of equipment to use as well and these include light weights, balls and majorette sticks: and they are getting so good at twiddling their majorette sticks that we are thinking of entering them to lead the carnival this year!! 

The sessions are great fun and they are never all in unison but it causes lots of laughter and no-one has knocked each other yet. The exercises started off with Max Bygraves music but they also jig about to Tony Christie singing Amarillo. Each session ends with gentle relaxation and a nice cup of tea and a chat.

The ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION

THE AMERICAN MEMORIAL CHAPEL TRAVEL GRANT 2004

Scholar: Revd. Helen Wordsworth, R.N., R.M., R.H.V.(tutor), R.N.T., Dip. Religious studies,(Cambs) Dip. Church Planting and Evangelism, M.Th.(Wales)

Subject studied: PARISH NURSING AND HEALTH MINISTRY

Date of tour: 28 Sept-4 Oct 2004 and 24 Feb-11 March 2005


Report Written: March 2005


Helen is Coordinator of the Parish Nursing Steering Group in the U.K., which is seeking to bring this faith-based, whole-person health care into the mission programmes of churches of all denominations in the U.K., and to have Parish Nursing recognised as an expression of Faith Community nursing with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The aims of the study were to 

1. Establish firm links with Parish Nursing resources in America, 

2. Learn from the experiences from some of the 10,000 ministers and nurses involved in health ministry in the U.S., 

3. Consider how some of these may be applicable to the development of Parish nursing in the very different health care and ecclesiological culture of the U.K. 

In order to achieve maximum value from the award, Helen invited two Steering Group colleagues to attend the Westberg Symposium 2004 in St Louis, Missouri and from the contacts made there, arranged for four of her pilot project colleagues to accompany her on hosted exchange visits to Parish Nurses in Milwaukee, St Louis and Chicago in March 2005. All of the group contributed to their own costs in addition to receiving help through the grant. The American nurses will be paying a return visit in 2006. 

Report:  Part one: September 28th to 4th October 2004

   Click on image for a full size picture

The Westberg Symposium is an annual gathering of around 600 Parish Nurses from all over the United States, and attracts visitors from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and Southern Africa, where the practice is also gaining credence. It started back in the 1980’s, when the Revd. Grainger Westberg, a hospital chaplain in Chicago, saw the potential for registered and experienced nurses to initiate a whole person health ministry from churches and achieved grant funding to start this with just six pilot programmes. Now there are 10,000 Parish Nurses in the U.S.A. working in both voluntary and paid capacities, with almost every denomination, and also from Jewish congregations. 
The symposium consists of papers from many of these nurses alongside keynote speakers on a given theme. In 2004 the theme was “Parish Nursing; a growing garden of ministries” and the content illustrated the diverse and increasing range of activities undertaken by Parish nurses in pursuance of health programmes from churches.  Worship and prayer is integral to the practice of Parish Nursing and was a major part at the Westberg Symposium

As UK co-ordinator for Parish Nursing, I was particularly interested in the management and education seminars, while my colleagues attended different topics so that we came back with a wealth of seminar material for our U.K. pilots. Over mealtimes we spoke with many practising nurses and learned of the difficulties as well as the joys of their experiences. 

Left to right, Debbie Hodge, myself and Lynda Bickley, enjoying one of the many opportunities to share meals with Parish nurses from all over the United States and beyond.
  Click on image for a full size picture

Time and time again we heard that these nurses had at last found a place to do the work that they had long felt called to do. Even though many of them were still volunteers, they were deeply committed people, assets in their communities.

They treated us with special honour too. We had the opportunity to speak to the conference and to discuss the differences between our two cultures in the realms of health care provision, nursing education, ecclesiology and missiology. We studied the curricula that have been developed by the International Parish Nurse Resource Centre as a basic preparatory course and were able to negotiate an agreement to modify it for use in the U.K. This means that our U.K. pilot nurses will now receive the internationally recognised certificate on successful completion of their preparatory course. It also means that we can train Coordinators in order to regionalise and grow the work here in the U.K.

Perhaps the most significant outcome for the further development of this movement came as we discussed the potential of Parish Nursing in a world context. We heard of a pilot with 32 nurses placed in churches throughout Swaziland that had made a life and death difference to families struggling with A.I.D.S. Reflecting on the need to adjust the concept within the framework of each country’s health provision development and ecclesiological setting, my UK colleagues and I proposed the formation of a World Forum for Parish Nursing with the following aims; 


1. Develop and promote the concept of Parish Nursing for worldwide application
2. Contribute unique national perspectives to programme development
3. Facilitate international exchanges and placements
4. Engage in the development of courses through the sharing of curricula
5. Broaden the base for reflective practice and research 
6. Provide a forum for multi-faith, multi-cultural and inter/intra-denominational discussion. 
7. Explore the relationship of parish nursing to other health care professions and ministries
8. Develop theologies for the integration of health and spirituality
9. Assist non-English-speaking countries articulate parish nursing with sensitivity


A breakfast meeting was held to discuss this proposal and on the last day of the conference the Forum was officially launched. This photo may therefore have deep historical significance! 
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Inaugural meeting of the World Forum for Parish Nursing. Representatives from Canada, Swaziland, Australia, India and the U.K joined Americans who had worked in other countries to form the first meeting. 


Part 2: February 24th to March 11th 2005

The contacts made at the conference produced around 40 invitations to arrange exchange visits for our pilot students. I sifted them in order to organise an itinerary that gave the widest variety of experience possible within a manageable geographical distance. Three sites were included: Milwaukee, Wisconsin; St. Louis Missouri; and Chicago, Illinois.

In each place a key American practitioner arranged placements and visits. Pat Olin had arranged our first stage in Milwaukee. Our three pilot nurses and a tutor colleague all stayed with U.S. Parish nurses working in different contexts and with different denominations to our own. I had a memorable time working with a Catholic nurse who covered an extremely poor inner city patch where there were many Polish and Hispanic people. 

I will never forget the chain-smoking, severely disabled couple we visited. They had no contact with the church until referred by a local state-funded community nurse to the Parish Nurse for additional support. She visited the small, dark ground floor flat regularly. Gradually George began to rediscover his early faith, and as he did so, became concerned for his wife Nora’s spiritual health. The Parish Nurse provided them with devotional reading material and at their request, eventually managed to persuade the parish priest to come to their home and baptise Nora, (with Holy water in a plastic cup!) administer first communion and confirmation, and perform a marriage blessing all on the same day. The Parish nurse’s husband came along as witness, and she organised flowers and a wedding cake to brighten up the gloomy room. The Parish priest’s comments afterwards were “Now I know what priesting is really about! 

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The nurse continued to visit weekly to pray with the couple and offer communion, supporting them in their various health problems at the same time. Whilst we were there, bad news from the hospital came through concerning Nora’s prognosis. The nurse took her to the hospital for a consultation and remained with her throughout. She continues to support Nora’s decision to refuse further chemotherapy and her wish to die naturally at home and in peace. She will find every way possible to achieve quality of life for this couple, both spiritual and physical in these last days they have together on earth. 

All the participants discovered stories like this one throughout the study trip. They continue to be told amongst congregations and health professionals over here, and will be shared as encouragements with the rest of our pilot projects when we meet in May. 

Milwaukee Parish Nurses entertain us in Pat Olin’s home. (Pat is standing at the back)
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The trip to St Louis was undertaken my tutor colleague and myself, since the purpose was to visit the offices of Revd Deborah Patterson, Executive Director of the International Parish Nurse Resource Centre there and glean further information for our study programmes in the U.K. 

We also had the opportunity to learn of the preparation needed to hold a major national symposium, and to pick up valuable resources for our library. We spent a day travelling around with three nurses working from churches in different parts of the city…suburban estate, urban state housing, and inner-city slum. The first was working with elderly people, offering bereavement support groups and teaching health in a school curriculum. The last two were particularly interesting in the range of health initiatives that had been undertaken. One had started a nutrition project that included the building of raised beds between the tenement housing for children to learn how to grow vegetables and sell them at a Saturday fresh vegetable and fruit market in the local church. The second ran a family advocacy service from a jeep with a mobile phone. We went with her to the Family Court to support a mother who had been unfairly charged with neglect. and no-go areas in order to support mothers and teenagers who were being unfairly treated by the authorities and in much distress. She described how she had come across teenagers with knives…and persuaded them to put away their weapons and walk to the end of the alleyway with her. Her sense of calling to this work came after she had received successful treatment for a life-threatening brain tumour 20 years earlier. 


Chicago offered two further perspectives…I stayed with Nancy Durbin, Coordinator of a programme of 24 paid parish nurses in a variety of denominations, funded by a Health corporation as part of their charity commitment. She also ran a regional network through which parish nurses appointed by other organisations and churches could gain support and encouragement. 

Chicago network of Parish Nurses meet for worship, theological reflection and encouragement.
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Here in Chicago I saw both the advantages and disadvantages of the American Health care system; funding was relatively easy to obtain, but different corporations competed fiercely with one another for clients, and occasionally this showed in their policy statements and management decisions regarding Parish Nursing. 

The other perspective I much appreciated in Chicago was the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Ann Solari-Twadell and Dr. Mary-Ann McGregor, both Professors of Nursing who had been in the forefront of the movement back in the nineties and whose wisdom and insight were invaluable to the development of our business plan for Parish Nursing in the U.K. We discussed research proposals with them and as a result may be participating in a wide-ranging evaluative study of Parish Nursing practice both in the States and here.

Left to right: Dr. Mary Ann McDermott, myself, and Dr. Ann Solari-Twadell, Mary and Ann were both pioneers in the development of Parish Nursing in America.

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It was certainly a full two weeks. We enjoyed wonderful hospitality and are indebted to the commitment of those who hosted us. We sincerely hope that this will be the start of a continuous programme of exchange visits between Parish nurses and educators in our two countries, and that the partnership thus commenced will bear much fruit in the years to come; not only as the practice of Parish Nursing develops in our U.K.churches, but also as we see the World Forum begin to facilitate the growth of whole person health in other countries. 

My colleagues and I are deeply grateful for the scholarship that enabled me to organise these study trips. 

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