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Hidden In Plain Sight

Hidden In Plain Sight. Understanding and Addressing Spirituality in Supports and Services. Understandings of Spirituality. Two fold definition: Experience with/of sacred and holy Ways that we make meaning, values, purpose. Spirituality as Connection. With Self With Others With Holy/God

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Hidden In Plain Sight

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  1. Hidden In Plain Sight Understanding and Addressing Spirituality in Supports and Services

  2. Understandings of Spirituality • Two fold definition: • Experience with/of sacred and holy • Ways that we make meaning, values, purpose

  3. Spirituality as Connection • With Self • With Others • With Holy/God • With Time

  4. Fundamental Spiritual Questions • Identity: Who am I? • Purpose. Why am I? What is my role and function in life? Why am I here? • Community: Who do I belong to? • Why pain or suffering or death?

  5. Disability: Thinking about it Universally • What is it? How is it defined? How does it define me? • Why did it happen? • How am I to respond to it? • How are others called to respond?

  6. Theological Questions Right in Front of You • What it means to be person? • What it says about God? • What it says about God’s people: church, congregation, people? • How we understand suffering and the difference between the two?

  7. Spiritual Questions at the Heart of our Values in D.D. Services • Independence: Who am I? • Productivity: Why am I? • Integration: “Whose am I?” underneath the “Where am I?’ • Self Determination: How can I shape my life?

  8. Western Expressions of Those Values and Answers • Values as Expression of what is Sacred for Us and Where We Have Found Meaning • Independence: Who Am I? Self made, Own Person • Productivity: Why Am I? Job, Vocation, Make a Difference • Integration: Community Inclusion: Presence to Membership • Self Determination: Choices, Power, Control

  9. Public Policy and Spirituality • Spirituality as private matter, not public • Separation of church and state • Science vs. religion • Equation of faith with reason

  10. Professional Practice and Spirituality • Understanding of professional role and identity • Separation of values and belief from public role • Pendulum from proselytizing • Bewildering array of practices • Fear of its power

  11. Reframing/Redeeming the Role of Professional • “Recovering Professional” • Value clear, not value free • Ideology of program, process, and philosophy • Honesty and mutuality in relationships

  12. The great paradox of ministry, therefore, is that we minister above all with our weakness, a weakness that invites us to receive from those to whom we go. The more in touch we are with our own need for healing and salvation, the more open we are to receive in gratitude what others have to offer us. The true skill of ministry is to help fearful and often oppressed men and women become aware of their own gifts, by receiving them in gratitude. In a sense, ministry becomes the skill of active dependency: willing to be dependent on what others have to give but often do not realize they have. Henri Nouwen, Gracias

  13. Recovering the “Profess” in Professional • Capacity to journey with others: loyalty, fealty • Capacity to deal with the tough ethical and spiritual questions that disability so starkly raises for us • Capacity to recognize and celebrate those holy moments and miracles of accomplishment and growth • Capacity to give thanks for discovery, meaning, and gift to us • Capacity to sacrifice, give up, for sake of others

  14. Narratives of Illness and Disability • Recovery: Fix, cure, heal • Chaos: Despair, destroy • Journey Arthur Frank, The Wounded Storyteller

  15. Capacity for Illusion and Delusion “Being a parent confronts you with an ordered, scientific world (with a bewildering array of services) while presenting you with all the chaos that real life has to offer” Ellen Cook

  16. Caution Signs and Illusions • Assumptions about knowledge and control • That we know ourselves completely - Pride • That we know others completely - Omniscience • That we control - Omnipotence • That we will escape diminishment and death Immortality With thanks to Parker Palmer and Ed Friedman

  17. Rationales for Invoking and Including • Tapping the power of the sacred in people’s lives • Ways that people find meaning and cope • Cultural competency/cultural humility • Self Determination • Quality of Life • Spirituality of staff • Soul of the organization

  18. Congregational Treasures • Shared spiritual expression • Opportunity to learn • Socialization…and friends • Recreation • A place to serve and give • Networking

  19. Life Span Transitions • Spiritual Supports at Diagnosis • Opportunity for inclusion • Rites of Passage as Building Community • Transition and Employment: The Power of Networks • Adult Services: A Place to Contribute • Aging and End of Life Issues

  20. End of Life Options • Policies and Practices in Handling Grief • Remembering and Celebrating Relationships • Plan Ahead…Nursing Role in Building Supports

  21. So how do we go about it, i.e., learn to say our prayers: • “I wanted to ask God why He does not do something about the poverty, wars, homelessness, and injustice I see around me” • “Why don’t you?’ • “I was afraid He would ask me the same question”

  22. Policies • Is it part of agency policy in terms of practice? • Freedom of religion, but no support to help it happen: AAIDD and The Arc Policy Statement on Religious Freedom • Make it explicit, not implicit or ignored • Focus groups with recipients and families

  23. Spiritual Assessments • Seven by Seven Model: George Fitchett • Glenda Prins: Spiritual strengths and experiences • FICA. Christine Pulchalski • A Space to Listen Project. What About Faith? John Swinton, UK • Use development as opportunity for bridge building and collaboration with the very communities you hope will help you.

  24. HOLISTIC ASSESSMENT Biological (Medical) Dimension Psychological Dimension Family Systems Dimension Psycho-Social Dimension Ethnic/Racial/Cultural Dimension Social Issues Dimension Spiritual Dimension SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT Belief and Meaning Vocation and Obligations Experience and Emotion Courage and Growth Ritual and Practice Community Authority and Guidance Seven by Seven Spiritual Assessment-George Fitchett

  25. Laundau-Stanton.J, Clements,C., Tartaglia, A., Nudd, J. & Espaillat-Pina,E. (1993) Spiritual, cultural, and community systems. In Landau-Stanton,J. & Clements, C. (Eds.) AIDS: health and mental health. a primary sourcebook. (pp. 267-298) New York. Bruner/Mazel.

  26. FICA • Faith • Influence and Importance • Communal Expression • Assistance Christine Puchalski, M.D. GWISH, George Washington Institute on Spirituality and Health

  27. Planning: Person Centered • Explore it • Invite others in • Clergy and/or congregation members to IHP’s

  28. Support It • Staff time • Revising staff roles • Opportunity for collaboration and community building • Celebrate it • Organize it. Roles and programs that bridge, network, support • e.g. Bridges to Faith Model, faith companions

  29. Train It • Staff training: • Attitudes • Role • Policies • Skills in connecting people with faith communities • Opportunities for staff to reflect: Story, symbol, song, culture • Community building times, action/reflection learning

  30. Train It • Consumers and service receivers: • Focus groups • Policy making • Use community help • Opportunities for “shopping,” informed choice, and practice. Religious education is not just a cognitive activity

  31. Train It • Families: • Clergy, spiritual leaders, and congregations

  32. Community Education and Outreach • Revised staff roles: Embracing Paradoxes • Do, Be, Do - Belief to belonging to belief to action • Services on needs, community on gifts • “Come to me” vs. “give it away” • Professional knowledge and professional ignorance • Everyone a community builder

  33. Community Building Roles • Consult: Plan with, not for • Collaborate: It takes a village…Whose are they? • Compete: If they can, how come we can’t? • Coach: Alongside consumer, congregation

  34. Coaching Roles: • Vision: Art, symbol. Belief, image, poetry, values • Storyteller • Guide: Inward and outward journey • Celebrant and Blesser

  35. Guiding Lines (“Faith Based Strategies”) • Setting the table • The last shall be first. Reverse the questions • The deaf shall hear. Reverse the answers • Who do you say that I am? Be careful with words. • Joshua committee. One person at a time.

  36. Guiding Lines (continued) • Jericho mentality: power of persistent celebration • Fish and loaves approach to planning: finding abundance in community • Believe in the call…for everyone. God’s hooks are everywhere • What is most critical is invisible to the eye • Watch out for idolatry, dogma, and ideology. Use the talents you have. Let the light shine. Just do it

  37. You may find: • Lack of personal experience • Lack of training • Questions about responsibility? Whose are they? • Issues of capacity and vision. Who’s disabled? • Burning bushes: theological questions and challenges

  38. Be graceful and prophesy • It takes time. Remember your own story • Take fear and feelings seriously. Feedback loops • From fear to love. Ministries of prepositions • Focus on hospitality and community and gifts

  39. Resources and Opportunities: It’s a Gold Mine • Go where there are • Find out what is happening already • Videos and adult education • Service and mission: beyond designated receivers • Youth and children

  40. Resources and Opportunities (continued) • Faith group networks. What does Rome say? • Accessible Congregations Campaign • Collaborative training • Find and celebrate the stories…newsletter, publicity • Not just about people with disabilities: Connect with all forms of ministry

  41. Get Connected • Someone in Agency Connect into AAIDD Religion and Spirituality Division and Newsletter • Write • Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health • Dimensions of Faith Resource Guide on line

  42. It’s About All of Us: “Where there is no vision, the people perish!” • Hospitality to the Stranger • Re-membering the Body and healing of the memories • Restoring the Sanctuary • Redeeming the Gifts

  43. Visions (continued) • Reversing the call • Recovering our senses • Rekindling the spirit • Reframing service, support, and profession

  44. Benediction: Go with God He is the Way Seek him in the Land of Unlikeness And you will meet rare beasts, and have unique adventures. He is the Truth Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety And you will come to a city that has expected your return for years. He is the Life Seek him in the world of the flesh And at your marriage, all its occasions shall dance for joy. WH Auden. For the Time Being

  45. Shalom Contact Information for AAIDD Religion and Spirituality Division and Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health Rev. Bill Gaventa The Boggs Center P.O. Box 2688 New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903 732-235-9304 (bill.gaventa@umdnj.edu)

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