Spiritual Care Lead in Ipswich

37.5 hours per week, working Monday to Friday - some flexibility to support events & particular family circumstances. Present across all three hospice sites weekly. EACH is looking for a Spiritual Care Lead to join our Wellbeing & Spiritual Care team, working across our three hospices. This is a unique opportunity to help shape and strengthen spiritual care provision within a warm, supportive, multidisciplinary environment.

Are you:

• Passionate about supporting children, young people, and families through some of the most profound moments in life?
• Compassionate, emotionally aware, and inclusive in order to offer spiritual and holistic support to people of all faiths and none?
• Someone who naturally brings warmth, presence, and emotional depth to your relationships with families, children, and staff?
• Comfortable navigating conversations around meaning, identity, grief, and hope- always with sensitivity and respect for all beliefs.

Do you have experience of:

• Providing spiritual, pastoral, counselling, or emotional support in a healthcare, education, community or faith setting.
• Providing spiritual support to those experiencing illness, grief, bereavement and loss; a background in trauma-informed practice.
• Working with babies, children and young people and their families.
• Knowledge of a range of religions, faiths, beliefs and cultural practices acquired through a relevant degree or equivalent level training and experience.

Main duties of the job:

What You’ll Do:

• Provide compassionate, inclusive spiritual and emotional support to children, young people, and families.
• Support staff wellbeing through reflective spaces, debriefing, and presence.
• Deliver training on spiritual care during education days and staff development sessions.
• Build relationships with local faith and belief communities to enhance understanding of hospice care and widen support options for families.
• Develop and supervise a team of spiritual care and chaplaincy volunteers, increasing diversity across religions and cultures.
• Hold reflective or commemorative spaces.
• Support key hospice events such as Baby Loss Awareness Week and annual Memory Days.
• Represent the hospice at community events, networks, and partnerships relating to spiritual care.

What We Offer:

• A deeply meaningful role where you can truly make a difference.
• Supportive, reflective supervision and team culture.
• Opportunities for professional development in paediatric spiritual care.
• The chance to contribute to a growing spiritual care service.

About us:

Comprehensive range of benefits:

• Free onsite parking & subsidised meals at our hospices.
• Pool car provided when working in the community.
• NHS pension - continuation if already contributing.
• Enhanced Annual leave Entitlement - 27 days + 8 UK Bank Holidays.
• AVIVA pension package up to 7% Employer Contribution including Life Assurance.
• Free eye tests & cycle to work scheme.

East Anglia's Children’s Hospices (EACH) supports families and cares for children and young people with life threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. At EACH we believe in fostering a workplace where every individual feels valued and respected. We are committed to building a culture of inclusion where differences are embraced. We are actively seeking talent from all walks of life, recognising that diversity drives innovation, creativity and success. Join us on a journey to create a more inclusive workplace, where everyone has equal opportunities to grow, contribute and succeed. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds to apply for opportunities at EACH and adjustments will be made to facilitate the application and selection process.

Job responsibilities:

Job Summary:

The Spiritual Care Lead provides compassionate, inclusive, spiritual and emotional support to children, young people and families across all three hospice sites. The role ensures that spiritual care is consistently available, contributing to holistic wellbeing and strengthening connections with local faith communities. It also supports staff through reflective practice and wellbeing-focused approaches.

In addition, the Spiritual Care Lead will recruit, develop and supervise a team of spiritual care and chaplaincy volunteers, offering clear guidance to ensure support is accessible to people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds. The role also provides training and advice to care teams, embedding meaning, belonging, hope, ritual and personal spirituality into the child's and families experience.

Responsibilities:

• Provide vision and leadership for the development of spiritual care in EACH acting as an expert advisor and resource for staff, volunteers and families as required.
• Build and maintain professional relationships with local faith leaders, belief communities and cultural groups across each hospice region.
• Improve mutual understanding of hospice care and ensure families can access community-specific spiritual support when desired.
• Promote and facilitate an approach to holistic care ensuring spiritual care needs are integrated into the multi-disciplinary approach to care respecting all beliefs, cultures and identities.
• Take a lead role in groups and activities including annual Memory Day Services, Baby Loss week, Remembering with Love and other bereavement events held for families at each locality and to actively contribute to the planning and de-brief meetings for these days.
• In partnership with the spiritual care and chaplaincy volunteers, ensure the resources and knowledge are in place so that the spiritual needs of babies, children, young people and their families are assessed and met as an integral part of hospice and palliative care.
• Ensure care is inclusive of all faiths and all spiritual beliefs.
• Conduct and facilitate celebrations and ceremonies for children and families.
• Support memory-making, keepsake activities and meaningful rituals (religious and non-religious).
• Support the spiritual care and chaplain volunteers to support the hospice team in delivering spiritual care within the locality ensuring that they deliver safe, inclusive, high-quality spiritual care in line with hospice values and policies.
• Provide compassionate listening and presence during times of uncertainty, transition, end of life and bereavement to children, young people and their families; informed by the service user preferred location/day/time to meet spiritual care related needs.
• On occasions, provide support to those experiencing more complex or severe spiritual care needs under the supervision of the Locality Wellbeing Lead.
• Provide general support to those who are experiencing mild and moderate distress by offering advice and support such as signposting to relevant information sources, helping with the creation of journey and memory boxes, providing practical advice and support around the time of death and into bereavement.
• Hold commemorative and reflective spaces following a child's death, or during end of life care, tailored to the family's traditions and needs.
• Maintain dedicated reflective spaces e.g. the Havens and develop reflective gardens at each of the sites.
• Ensure all spiritual care interactions are sensitively recorded on SystmOne.

Team Working:

• Attend multi-disciplinary meetings, including daily care planning and act as a resource for other members of the team with regards to spiritual care.
• Build and maintain effective relationships within and across teams in EACH and external professionals.
• Develop and maintain effective working relationships with local agencies providing spiritual care resources and services pertinent to hospice and palliative care, keeping up to date with developments in spiritual care and updating practice accordingly.
• Recognise and report challenging areas and work with others to find improvements and/or resolutions.
• Recruit, supervise and appraise identified volunteers.
• Provide individual or group reflective space for staff and volunteers.
• Contribute to a culture of where staff wellbeing and holistic care are actively valued.

Professional Responsibility:

• Fulfil professional clinical supervision requirements.
• Maintain an up to date knowledge of best practice in safeguarding and the identification of potential risk for all children, young people, families and significant others whilst upholding safeguarding responsibilities and maintaining appropriate boundaries at all times.
• Keep up to date with professional developments in the provision of spiritual care and specialist palliative care.
• Represent the hospice at community events, networks, and partnerships relating to spiritual care.
• Make recommendations for developing knowledge, skills and resources within EACH which are informed by the outcomes of audit and feedback from service users and staff.
• Provide practice supervision / reflective practice where required.
• Develop an awareness of own personal responses in relation to the maintenance of a safe environment and identification of potential risk for all personnel, patients and significant others.

Education and Governance Activities:

• Develop accessible resources to support staff understanding of diverse beliefs, rituals, and cultural practices.
• Provide the method and tools by which EACH monitors the effectiveness of spiritual care provision.
• Support staff to recognise and respond to spiritual care needs in everyday care.
• Design and deliver EACH in-service training and awareness events as required e.g. education, PEOLC and induction days.
• Participate in relevant clinical governance activities within EACH.
• Participate in student placement programmes where appropriate.
• Where required contribute to the EACH audit programme.
• Provide statistical information as required.

Person Specification:

Experience:

• Experience providing spiritual, pastoral, counselling, or emotional support in a healthcare, education, community or faith setting.
• Experience of providing spiritual support to those experiencing illness, grief, bereavement and loss; a background in trauma-informed practice.
• Experience of working with babies, children and young people and their families.
• Evidence of working within a professional multi-disciplinary team.
• Experience of managing and supervising staff and volunteers.
• Experience of coordinating and leading spiritual care events or activities.
• Experience of working with and building relationships with multi-faiths and belief systems.
• Experience of working in a palliative or health care service.
• Experience of providing spiritual care services in a children's care setting.
• Experience of delivering care virtually.
• Experience of SystmOne or patient management systems.

Skills & Abilities:

• Able to provide training to staff in spiritual care.
• Able to provide group facilitation.
• Excellent communication and record-keeping skills, including digital systems e.g. SystmOne.
• Current full, valid driving license and own transport.

Qualifications:

• Knowledge of a range of religions, faiths, beliefs and cultural practices acquired through a relevant degree or equivalent level training and experience.
• Understanding of safeguarding policies and procedures and the importance of safeguarding babies, children, young people and vulnerable adults.
• Active member of the Hospice and Palliative Care Forum (HPCF) of the College of Health Care Chaplains (CHCC).

Skills & Abilities:

• The ability to deliver inclusive spiritual care to people of all faiths and none - respecting the belief system of others.
• Skills in listening, presence, emotional intelligence and holding sensitive conversations.
• The ability to meet others at their point of need and respond in ways which are meaningful and appropriate.
• Ability to work autonomously and as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Ability to recognise and solve complex challenges.
• Ability to manage a complex caseload.
• Ability to offer mentoring to chaplains on placement.
• Ability to make use of clinical supervision.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Advanced communication skills both orally and in writing.
• Able to provide training to staff in spiritual care.
• Able to provide group facilitation.

Additional Criteria:

• Knowledge of a range of religions, faiths, beliefs and cultural practices acquired through a relevant degree or equivalent level training and experience.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check:

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.