In the final week of June, Penny Street, Vicky Gonzalez Burrows and I attended the Spiritual Care Australia Conference – the topic: Patterns of Creative Spiritual Care. Along with creativity, other themes of the weekend that emerged for me were diversity, kindness, and safety.
True to the creativity theme, each day was book-ended by song and sacred drumming, and the whole conference was documented in the form of an ever-changing canvas by the artist in residence, Phoebe Bakker. Click here to view the time-lapse video on her Instagram account.
Vicky Gonzalez Burrows, our Mission and Ethos director and vice president of the SCA board, presented several sessions as well, including a workshop on non-faith-based spiritual care practitioners, where we got to have a wonderful ecumenical dialogue which also revealed the commonalities that we have as spiritual carers.
On day one, we heard from Aunty Glendra Stubbs on Aboriginal spirituality; my key takeaway from her time with us was her focus on kindness, courage, and the importance of story in a person’s life.
We also heard from Dr Joel Hollier on the ways that religious institutions have been and continue to be damaging to people. He presented us with a vision for how to create a community which promotes empowerment, inclusion, safety, generosity, hope, dignity and equality – a vision that I think collectively we share here at MercyCare. We are grateful for the many people in our organisation who champion these values.
On day two we heard from Reverend Jon Owen on Australian spirituality, Professor Jamie Calder on the importance of establishing a culture of safety, and Kirsty Beilharz on creativity in spiritual care.
The standout from that last talk for me was about the benefits of using music in care for those with dementia and at the end of their life. There are many ways that this is already happening in our centres and it was inspiring and encouraging to hear about Kirsty’s research into this topic.
Finally on day three, we heard from Associate Professor Robyn Wrigley-Carr on using creativity and the arts in aged care settings, exploring the importance of rituals, symbols, and sensory experience in people’s lives.
We finished with a wonderful panel of faith leaders from diverse traditions in conversation. This was a great learning experience hearing from different points of view and made me feel grateful for the diversity we have in our own organisation.
All in all, this conference was three days of enriching engagement which connected us with our senses, imaginations, and intellects. It was a brilliant chance to link in with other spiritual care professionals and gave us all a lot to take back to our work here at MercyCare.
