This is a hidden webpage for members of the SC Working Groups.
Submit your comments on what is missing, needs adding and tweaking below the blog by 14 December.
SC AREAS FOR RESEARCH v1 DEC 2022
A. Representation
- Stats on size of spiritual not religious (SNR) community in UK.
- Bodies and organisations where faith communities have a seat/are represented.
- Process of achieving representation on these bodies.
- UK Register of Spiritual Caregivers – other Registers where it should be registered/aligned. How to achieve this.
B. Education
Schools
- Religious Education, Citizenship and Social & Personal Health Education
- Differences between England, Scotland and Wales. The legislation.
- Who sets the curriculum?
- Are there central resources and lesson plans? How do they vary for key stages?
- How do we best influence, support and create relevant resources?
CPD and HE Resources
- Identify the courses, qualifications and careers where SC approach would be appropriate and supportive.
- Identify best routes for delivering our approach. Commissioners. Partnerships. Standalone CPD.
C. Community Building
- Models of good practice.
- Possible partners. Other congruent networks.
D. Outreach
- Best website models.
- Podcast development.
- Social networking models of good practice.
E. Fundraising
- Identify relevant grant-making foundations etc
The ‘Who sets the curriculum?’ topic is worth exploring because the content of the course lends itself to easy adaptation and augmentation to meet the needs of different groups. Curating resources of content and ways to present the material seems essential.
I feel AdEd and F.E. are all worth keeping in our sights as well as Higher Education.
While the need to fit within OFSTED requirements made running the Spiritual Health programmes very time-consuming and in my case eventually unsustainable, people really appreciated this learning through Adult Education. My ‘learners’ included people with mental and physical health challenges, people with learning difficulties and an assortment of other interested folk.
What does F.E. stand for?
Have you considered the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council?
FE = Further Education. IE 6th Form and Vocational Colleges. Ages 16+
I also thought of FE as needing to be included.
Many person-centred courses are delivered through FE; hair & beauty and hospitality are obvious ones but many of the SC learnings/practices would be useful as inclusiveness skill development.,
Agree that FE and AE should be included and also wonder whether HE approach may be less about identifying courses and more about researching HEI policies/strategies which avow alignment with SCs. In this way we would be perceived more as addressing an identified issue thereby perhaps being welcomed / pushing at a half open door.
Representation 4. needs tweaking to:
UK register of Spiritual Care Givers – how to get this recognised by the Professional Standards Authority as an accredited register. https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/home. I suggest this should be done rather than aligning our register with any other non-recognised/non-accredited registers.
I was thinking perhaps the ‘Fundraising’ title be changed to Funding or even Investment. For me ‘Fundraising’ has an image of us setting up a cake stall whereas funding or investment aligns itself to the strategic scope of what we are doing.
Yes – am also thinking that Funding, Strategy and Marketing are a single package. Wm x
Apologies for slow response. I agree that Funding and Marketing/Promotion are part of the same strand. Strategy relates to all of SC, and sits over and around everything. And investment is a good way to think about fundraising, as it suggests a 2 way interaction.
Just some thoughts (and apologies if they’re rather random):
I know at Findhorn they’ve been going through a process of seeking to identify what their key purpose is, or should be. Is that what we’re involved in here? If so, could we reach out to those who’ve completed the Diploma to gain their views? And find out if and how they feel they benefited, how they applied the experiences, what next steps they took etc.
Secondly, much of the academic research on the health benefits of spirituality is based on organised religion. To what extent does this apply to spirituality in general? Do we have any evidence? And what about areas of cross-over/commonality between the two?
Hi Paul
I think one of the barriers to research is a universally agreed definition of spirituality. So often the term is confused with religion, something I realised recently while doing my own research project for my MSc
A data set from the SC community as a basis for both reflection and outreach, do I remember correctly that we have that?
I thoughts, about SBNR health, religious/spiritual and other stuff – looking forward to having some defined goals for research – my head is not coming up with any adjustments to the list, just starting to visualize some materials for presentation.
I also like this website for its style -https://www.gapminder.org/ – not to do with spirituality but I love the way it presents information.
I thoughts? I have thoughts. My head obviously reached its word limit
Under Outreach, should an app also be part of the consideration? I know that something was being worked on but don’t know how far it got.
Other congruent networks ?
https://cygnusreview.com/pages/cygnus-community-cafes
Other congruent networks
http://www.parallelcommunity.com/
https://mailchi.mp/b8259c3ca055/parallelcommunity-wintersolstice2022?e=a6ab3f8375
Other congruent networks
https://humanityrising.solutions/
Humanity Rising is designed to be a global commons for all participating organizations to share what they are developing for their own networks with a larger global audience. All partners will share what they are offering as they engage in deep dialogue about the human future. The activities of each organization will be profiled on a central schedule so that as organizations offer their workshops, every stakeholder in the network will know about it and be invited to participate. This allows participants a wide scope of possibilities and activities for involvement in the most important conversation the world can have at this moment in time.
Other congruent networks
https://www.greenspirit.org.uk/localgroups2/about/
For Community Building consider The People’s Health Alliance whose mission is to create a network of independent, integrated community health hubs that work collaboratively to empower and educate people to take responsibility for their own health – https://the-pha.org
Also Conscious Cafe, whose mission is to connect people through conscious conversations – https://consciouscafe.org
On my journey to building SNR community here in Eastbourne, I could’ve done with some training on group dynamics and how to manage groups – particularly public groups where attendance is unpredictable and where it could be harder to maintain a safe space. I remember at the end of our SC training, William, you publicised a great group-management trainer. I was unable to attend that workshop, but I wonder if this would be useful for those of us building community…? Perhaps we could research this?
P.S. there may of course be other training needs for our SC group members that are immediately apparent or evolve as we move forward. 🙏
The challenging news about mental and physical health of SBNR is based on a 2 year study of university students. I wonder how much the age and egoic, psychological, and spiritual maturity of the students influenced the results. It begs questions, and perhaps a longer term longitudinal study with a broader range of people will enrich our understanding?
I’m wondering about research into the Representation part of the project. Is there any existing data on how hospices/hospitals and other organisations select their spiritual/faith support personnel?
After contemplating the struggle I am having differentiating that curriculum comes from Spirit and if curriculum is an archetype of sorts etc.
I think I have come to conclude that higher education and spiritual education is what feeds the curriculum and society so ultimately the people within this might benefit from the resources contained in ourselves as taught to us by Spiritual Companions. The research that identifies the mental health of University students is a great place to begin. From what I have seen Universities have incredibly busy well being and counselling services. The University is often recognised as a rite of passage into adulthood that is also spiritual and it is not always recognised as this when there is so much focus on achieving. Does there need to be a focus on it? Would it benefit the students to be aware of what is often spiritual can be significant for the person and valuable later in life? If a study was undertaken to find students who didn’t find personal challenges during their time at University whether it be mental, spiritual, health, financial etc.would they find any and does the way it is recognised affect the way it manifests? Can spiritual companions provide similar statistics to show that the Rite of Passage into adulthood would have benefited from what spiritual companions are offering? Or that by looking into this during other stages in life is just as beneficial as religion?
Now I remember how research raises more questions than it answers which I love and it is really nice it is to be part of this project, thank you.
Ultimately I think the structure of areas for research is great, I think Representation is key and the points are good ones.
Is the spiritual companions logo trademarked? This isn’t always that expensive and gets noticed by similar organisations looking to do similar things.
Interesting article in the Science & Tech section of this Sunday’s Observer summarising the research on the health benefits of religious practice by Duke University and others, but also suggesting strategies that ‘non-believers’ can usefully benefit from.
I think there is plenty here to keep us occupied for a while – and more subjects will emerge as we start to work on this. It was great to see that piece of research from the Throes Think Tank about the Nones. I haven’t read it in details as yet, but it is clear that we are more numerous than I thought – and totally under represented. So this is something that I think is a priority, especially considering the work the Labour party is doing on the reform of the House of Lords and other initiatives. The timing could be good.