
Accord is the magazine of the Association of Christian Counsellors and Pastoral Care UK. I was delighted to be asked to contribute an article about Anna Chaplaincy (writes Debbie Thrower) for the current issue looking at the subject of ‘Who am I? Questions of Identity’.
With a wide and varied readership of practitioners and pastoral workers, an invitation followed to address the Seniors’ Forum of the Irish Chaplaincy. So many Irish families have worked and made their homes in and around London over the years that the Irish Chaplaincy is a service offered particularly to older men and women living across 32 London boroughs. The online Seniors’ Forum is held in conjunction with Caritas Westminster https://www.caritaswestminster.org.uk/. Caritas Westminster is one of 17 Catholic diocesan agencies linked to the Catholic bishops’ official agency for social action in England and Wales, CSAN (https://www.csan.org.uk/).
Interestingly, in response to questions about how to get Anna Chaplaincy up and running with a paid post in a specific area, a representative of Caritas Westminster spoke encouragingly about the possibility of grant-funding being available for those churches seriously considering developing their older people’s ministry in this way. Do contact us at annachaplaincy@brf.org.uk if you’d like to be put in touch directly with the team who made this suggestion.
Aptly enough, I was speaking on national Time to Talk Day about the therapeutic effects of listening and the ways in which Anna Chaplains cultivate good listening skills. The talk also covered, as indeed the article does, the surprising nature of growing older and how ill-prepared many feel as they grow older and become prone to experiencing ‘multiple overwhelmings.’
You may read the full article, which appears from pages 26 onward, in an online version of Accord here.
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