PS 1997; 48:1549-1552
Copyright © 1997 by American Psychiatric Association
Collaboration between hospital social work and pastoral care to help families cope with serious illness and grief
CW Hart and S Matorin
New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, New York City, USA.
The authors describe an educational program for hospital chaplains based on
a partnership between pastoral care and social work in a teaching hospital.
The goal of the program is to train chaplains to use social work principles
to maximize families' capacity to negotiate a complex health care system,
to solve problems in a health crisis, and to participate constructively on
the health care team. Building on the two disciplines' shared values in
person-centered, process-oriented approaches to care, the program
introduces chaplain trainees to social work concepts of crisis intervention
and family systems theory that they can apply in their interactions with
families in their hospital and congregational practice. The approach taught
in the program is illustrated in a case vignette describing a chaplain
trainee's work with the family of a child treated for severe burns.
