PGCert course details

These details relate to the course as it was run up to 2023. The details for the current course can be found on the new page.

Course and Module Aims

The evidence suggests that whilst there is a developing interest in the UK and elsewhere in incorporating spiritual understandings within health and social care and in counselling and psychotherapy contexts, in reality there is a gap between theory and practice.

The programme aims to support the development of an effective, holistic and inclusive cross-disciplinary approach to health and social care whereby practitioners are able to work collaboratively to understand the complex, significant relationships between their patients’ and clients’ medical, therapeutic and spiritual needs.

It is strongly recommended that you take the two modules together within the same year as the two modules are designed to work together and the second module builds on the learning of the first. As both modules involve a significant amount of self-reflection as well as professional reflective practice working together with other students on the course, the bond formed by each year’s cohort is also a contributory factor to getting the most out of the course. 

First module (20 credits): Theories and Practice of Psychospiritual Care

This module offers a broad overview of the meaning of spirituality and psychospiritual care, what this looks like in health and social care settings, and how spiritual need is assessed. Students are given the opportunity to engage with the interpretations and examples that appear in the literature and to critically evaluate these in the light of their own understanding and experience. 

Students are encouraged to relate their learning to both personal and professional experience and to reflect on their own and others’ lived experiences of psychospiritual care. 

Outline syllabus of first module:

• What do we mean by spirituality and psychospiritual care in health and social care contexts?
• The role of the health- and social-care chaplain
• Embodied psycho-spiritual care and embodied self-care: processing vicarious trauma and promoting wellbeing
• Cultural sensitivity in the context of team and organisational culture
• Lived experience: stories of psychospiritual care
• Existential and phenomenological responses to human need
• Tools for spiritual assessment in health and social care
• Presence and encounter in psychospiritual care

Second module (40 credits): Therapeutic Approaches to Psychospiritual Care

Successful completion of the first module “Theories and Practice of Psychospiritual Care” is a prerequisite to register for this module.

The module aims to equip the student with the knowledge and skills to ensure the psychospiritual needs of service users and staff are addressed. This is done by facilitating learners to analyse and critically evaluate models of approaches to psychospiritual care in a variety of contexts and then apply this whilst critically analysing their psychospiritual practice through reflection.  

Learners are empowered to apply a holistic approach to their understanding of psychospiritual care in health and social care settings as well as understand  the elements, benefits and importance of reflexivity and self-awareness in the context of both personal spiritual development and development as a practitioner of psychospiritual care.

Outline syllabus of second module:  

• Spirituality in psychotherapeutic work: transpersonal, existential, Jungian and other approaches
• The person-centred approach in theory and practice
• Psychospiritual care and nature
• Psychospiritual care for children & young people
• Psychospiritual care at times of crisis and trauma
• Psychospiritual care and psychosis
• A psychospiritual care approach to self-harm and suicide
• Living and dying well: responding to spiritual need in palliative and end of life care
• ‘Social graces’: aspects of difference and diversity in psychospiritual care
• The creative arts and psychospiritual care

Background

Healthcare workers responding to an OxCSWell survey across the Thames Valley felt that spiritual care was not just a core part of attending to the health of patients and service users, but an essential part of their own wellbeing as “whole persons”, supporting other whole persons through the healthcare system. The survey also revealed that the majority of healthcare professionals had received no training in spiritual care, and felt this was an important but missing part of their education and ongoing professional development.

This finding is consistent with the wider literature which shows that, although policy guidance may mention spiritual assessment and care as part of a person-centred approach to care, practitioners lack the confidence, pathways, and structural support to deliver spiritual care beyond what was described in our survey as “tokenistic” and “cursory”. A large part of this appears to be due to confusion about what exactly spiritual care is, and who should deliver it, beyond the role of specific spiritual care providers such as chaplains. Practitioners appear to feel anxious about crossing sensitive religious or professional boundaries, and lack supervision and guidance on “how to” respond to what has been described by international consensus as: “…a dynamic and intrinsic aspect of humanity through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence, and experience relationships to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred. Spirituality is expressed through beliefs, values, traditions, and practices.”

We are clear, therefore, that there is a clear and expressed need for training in psychospiritual care, and this has been borne out by the positive feedback received from past and present cohorts of students.

Entry Criteria  

The content of this programme is aimed at registered health and care practitioners from a wide variety of health and care professions, including nursing, midwifery, allied health care, chaplaincy, psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, psychiatry, and social work roles.

You must have a minimum of one year’s experience as a practitioner in a health or social-care setting.

Applicants need to have a qualification at level 6 (such as a bachelor’s degree). Current professional registration may be deemed equivalent to Level 6 study. 

The module is open to external applicants from outside Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (fees apply for external applicants). 

Planned future dates

It is highly recommended that students undertake the pre-module introductory workshop and online study skills training. These will be available online after registration and before the first study day.

There are currently 6 taught study days for the first module, and 9 for the second module. Study days are all Thursdays apart from the first week of the first module where we have an induction of two consecutive study days on Wednesday and Thursday. Delivery is currently face to face at Unipart House in Oxford. 

Dates for the next cohort and closing date for applications will be posted here when the information is available. There is currently a review of the course content underway, so future content may not exactly match the information above, though this will still be useful as a guide until the new course structure is available.

The closing date for applications for 2024-2025 was 1^st July 2024.

Contact

• For further information, for an application form, or to arrange a preliminary discussion before applying, please contact the Course Lead, Andrew Williams at andrew.williams@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk