Interdisciplinary Relationships between Chaplains and Social Workers in Health Care Settings

Abstract

As professional members of interdisciplinary teams in health care settings, chaplains and social workers must be prepared to interface with each other in a competent manner and to work cooperatively in caring for the needs of patients and their families. This article shares the results of a combined qualitative and quantitative research study (N = 403) that focused on determining chaplains' perceptions of their professional collaborative relationships with social workers. The findings indicate that chaplains have an overall positive perception of their interdisciplinary relationships with social workers. However, the results suggest areas that should be addressed in order to maintain and improve their functioning as colleagues who each play a critical role in providing holistic treatment.

Awareness and Preferences for Health Care Chaplaincy Services Among US Adults

“…33,35 There seems to be a substantial number of patients who would like to have their R/S or existential needs met while receiving medical care, and yet when asked about specific services desired in either the outpatient or inpatient setting, the least desired services related directly to religious needs or resources. This aligns with the changing dynamics of religion in the United States, with the rise of the nonreligious ("nones"), [33][34][35] and highlights the need for chaplains to continue to develop skills for exploring existential needs without a religious framework. It also fills an important gap in the literature when it comes to better understanding what types of services patients receive or want to receive that chaplains provide.…”

“…Gaps also remain around general knowledge regarding the full range of services that chaplains provide on the care team. Prior work has focused on the perspectives of other medical professionals (eg, physicians, nurses) [32][33][34][35] or retrospective exploration of patient experiences with chaplains. 36 There is also little known about preferences of US adults in seeing a chaplain while receiving health care services despite evidence that suggests that attending to the spiritual, existential, and/or religious needs of patients has a meaningful impact on health.…”

Revs and Psychos: Role, Impact and Interaction of Sport Chaplains and Sport Psychologists within English Premiership Soccer

“…With an overlap of roles regarding pastoral support, there is evidence to suggest that by working in partnership, their efforts could be more effective and efficient. Lessons could be learnt for example from the health industry, whereby the collaboration of psychologist and chaplain has led to discernible improvements in working practice which, in turn, has led to greater accountability and an increased recognition of their worth (e.g., Monod et al, 2010;Harr, 2010). With both psychology and chaplaincy still seeking professional status and integration within the English Premiership soccer clubs, a collaborative approach is therefore worthy of consideration.…”

Multidisciplinary staff perspectives on the integration of spiritual care in a new setting: Israel

“…There is widespread consensus that patient care should be a collaborative effort of the multidisciplinary team (MDT). Best practices for MDT work in general (Bronstein, 2003) and for providing spiritual care within the MDT (Harr et al, 2009; Puchalski et al, 2009) have been described. It is a key for teams to establish good formal communication mechanisms and work to find common professional language (Harr et al, 2009; O’Connor and Fisher, 2011; Kao et al, 2017), articulate shared goals and values and a commitment to finding the added value gained by collaborating (Bronstein, 2003), and work to gain a deeper understanding of the unique role fulfilled by each profession and to learn to respect the different perspectives brought by each profession (Harr et al, 2009; O’Connor and Fisher, 2011).…”

“…Spiritual caregivers experience nurses as providing the most support (Wittenberg-Lyles et al, 2008) and as best understanding their role, while physicians and social workers see a more limited role for spiritual care (Galek et al, 2009). Furthermore, qualitative studies have raised more negative experiences, such as role conflict (Wesley et al, 2004), competitiveness, and “turf wars,” especially among the more closely overlapping fields such as social work and psychology, or when role blurring takes place (O’Connor and Fisher, 2011), and even disrespect for what another profession has to offer (Harr et al, 2009).…”