Pastoral Visitors Listen in Hospital Community and Beyond
From left, Gretchen Crawford of Rockland who serves at Quarry Hill and PBMC; Rev. Laura Edwards, Pastoral Care Coordinator; Spring Hanna of Rockport who serves at PBMC and Kathy Tyler of South Thomaston who serves at Knox and PBMC. Other members of the pastoral team, who are not pictured here, are Carol Swears of Vinalhaven who will be serving her community in Vinalhaven; Bradley Borch of Hope who will be serving at PBMC and Rich Wellman of Camden who will be serving in his community and at Windward Gardens.
The graduates of this year’s pastoral visitor training course offered by Penobscot Bay Healthcare are extending the community of listeners beyond the Pen Bay buildings.
This program prepares volunteers to provide pastoral care and companionship to individuals and those close to them who are experiencing the effects of illness, surgery, incapacitation, loss of independence, death and bereavement.
The most recent class of graduates includes Gretchen Crawford of Rockland, Carol Swears of Vinalhaven, Spring Hanna of Rockport, Kathy Tyler of South Thomaston, Bradley Borch of Hope and Rich Wellman of Camden. About half of the newest group of volunteers came to the program from within the Pen Bay Healthcare community, while others, including Swears and Wellman, are planning on using their new skills to provide pastoral services to fill a need in their local communities.
For example, Swears will use what she has learned in this course to provide pastoral outreach services to those who need them on her native island of Vinalhaven.
As recent graduate Kathy Tyler said, "The classes were for pastoral visiting, but the learning can be put to use every day in regular life as well."
"It's really about active and reflective listening," said Laura Edwards, Pastoral Care Coordinator. "It's very seldom, in the healthcare system, that people have the benefit of a listening presence, with no strings attached." The volunteers learned to heed that uncomfortable feeling of "not knowing what to say" – because sometimes the right response turns out to be silence, she said.
This class of volunteers represents a diverse group of churches: St. John United Methodist in Camden, People’s United Methodist in South Thomaston, St. John’s Episcopal in Thomaston, Chestnut Street Baptist Church in Camden and Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Lewiston. Volunteers do not speak for any particular denomination when they visit patients and they strive to be respectful of all patients' beliefs.
"Some patients don't believe in God, and others are angry at God," said Edwards. "We don't preach to them. We're there to listen and be a comfort in any way we can."
"It’s really all about the patients’ personal stories," added Tyler.
Trained pastoral visitors abide by federal privacy laws and are therefore legally allowed to know where patients are being treated or transferred, which gives them the ability to provide continuity of spiritual care as patients journey through the healthcare system.
The pastoral training course consists of 10 two-hour classes plus supervised weekly visits with patients at Penobscot Bay Medical Center, Quarry Hill and the Knox Center for Long Term Care. Edwards facilitates the course, and she has invited many others to speak to the group, among them Susan Watkins, Hospice Case Manager, Kno-Wal-Lin who talked about death and dying; Eileen Hawkins from the PBMC Stroke Center; Suzanne Miller from Quarry Hill, who spoke about stress and self-care; and the Rev. Audrey Philcox, who now resides at Windward Gardens in Camden and who talked about issues of the elderly in nursing homes. The textbook for the course is "The Lay Pastoral Worker's Hospital Handbook," by Neville Kirkwood.
Anyone interested in more information about becoming a pastoral visitor volunteer should contact Sarah Dwelley, Hospice Program Director at 594-9561 or sdwelley@penbayhealthcare.org.