Leader & Staff Formation
Recently, we piloted an online webinar series for Ministry Concepts at the system level, with the goal of expanding the program throughout the ministry. Given the positive response received from the pilot participants, four virtual Ministry Concept courses were created with six sessions each.
The formation session included:
Vocation
Focused on our call to serve, diversity and inclusion, introduction to contemplative practices and the vocation of ministry leadership, including the need to identify our own sense of purpose in the ministry.
Tradition
Focused on the healing ministry of Jesus, Scripture and Gospel stories, the charisms of our founding orders, the Catholic Church structure and theology of the Catholic ministry.
Spirituality
Focused on holistic health care, recognizing the spiritual needs of those we serve, especially the suffering; addressing our own spirituality and spiritual practices; and applying the traits of servant leadership to our own practices to create a space for spiritual
Catholic Social Teaching
Focused on the origins of Catholic social teaching, CST, and how the themes relate to our ministry, align with our values and impact our views of health disparities.
Ethics
Focused on personal moral development, ethical issues that challenge us in our day-to-day work and tools to address those challenges, how the Ethical and Religious Directives impact our role as a health ministry and our calling to create a culture that promotes ethical practice.
Discernment
Focused on the differences between decision-making and discernment with an emphasis on when to use discernment. Our Values in Decision Making Tool was used on a practice case study to familiarize the participant with its content and process. Our and values, as well as the themes of CST.
Developing Our Spiritual Care Team
As a Catholic health ministry, Covenant Health Systems has worked hard to form and foster a robust and responsive chaplaincy and spiritual care team across our family of organizations. Each year, we report on the work of our chaplains and spiritual care offerings, but at no point in our history has this team and their work been more visible and essential than during the past two years. Having our chaplains and spiritual care team members stand shoulder to shoulder with our staff, providers, patients and residents helped everyone feel encouraged and supported. There are many examples of this woven throughout our organization reports, but we felt it important to highlight the ways these spiritual leaders worked to strengthen their own knowledge and increase their impact both within and beyond the organizations and communities they serve.