St Michael's College

Colin Butler is an Army Chaplain who, after completing the MTh in Chaplaincy Studies, decided he would like to continue some directed academic work. Using funding available to service personnel, he has undertaken a project that should lead to a PhD. He is examining the Military Covenant in the light of some contemporary social philosophy theories.

As a member of the armed forces Colin, who is an Anglican clergyman, finds the combination of daily life with work and advanced study challenging but worthwhile. He finds it rewarding finding out about new ways of looking at the complexity that surrounds moral thinking in today’s world. He is often surprised at the direction he finds his studying takes him.

Married with adult children, Colin is now serving in the north-west of England.

An Examination of the Military Covenant in the light of the Theory of Justice by John Rawls.

This work is broader than the title suggests as it has become a project that examines the enduring role of Christian theological thinking in contemporary Britain. Rawls is presented as a key representative proponent of a secular approach that explicitly removes religion from public debate. After showing his influence and offering a set of criticisms, the second aspect of the work will seek to illustrate how theologically informed thinking is able to offer legitimate insights to help underpin contemporary affairs.

For over thirty years before taking up his present post, Hamish was a nurse in the NHS in the fields of Orthopaedics, Accident and Emergency, and Care of the Elderly. He was ordained within the Church of England in 1999 and served in an urban priority area in Lichfield diocese as a local non-stipendiary minister.

After accepting a post as a hospital chaplain with the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, he moved to South Yorkshire in 2005.

Since then, he has been one of a small ecumenical and multi-faith team that offers spiritual and religious care and support to all patients, visitors and staff at Rotherham Hospital. The team also provides spiritual and religious care at Rotherham Hospice.

Following his appointment to this new role within the NHS, Hamish undertook the MTh in Chaplaincy Studies at St. Michael’s, Llandaff, graduating in 2010. He is currently researching the place of metaphor and image in pastoral support within acute healthcare chaplaincy and the implications of this for the language in which the process of theological reflection that structures the practice of chaplains is carried out.

Accurate description, empathetic accompaniment: the uses of a poetic mode of theology in informing the practice of chaplaincy in the contemporary acute health care setting.

My research focuses on the poetics of theology and the possible effects of its application in the work of chaplains in acute health care at both conceptual and practical levels,. I wish to investigate how a way of doing theology that gives full weight to metaphor, image and paradox might permit a wider range of communication and greater empathetic depth in pastoral encounters, with the outcome of more effective patient support. In parallel with this I also wish to probe the implications of this way of theological reflection for the knowledge base of chaplaincy, its epistemology and methodology, in the specialised arena of acute health care.

The desired outcome of this research is to demonstrate the validity and applicability of a poetic mode of theology to chaplaincy practice and to show how such an application might enhance that practice.

Stephen is Head of Spiritual and Pastoral Care at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust which encompasses five central London hospital including Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St. Mary's. He is responsible for a multi-faith team of chaplains who provide spiritual, pastoral and religious care to patients, staff and visitors both in Imperial and a number of other hospitals and units under service level agreements. The Trust and the team are committed to excellence in education, research and service delivery - five members of the team are currently undertaking research, three at doctoral level.

Stephen has worked in the NHS for a total of 37 years - twenty five as a nurse and twelve as a chaplain. In nursing his main area of interest was respiratory medicine both in adults and paediatrics; he has published research looking at the security of diagnosis and treatment of COPD by none respiratory medical teams compared with respiratory teams. He trained for the ministry at Salisbury and Wells Theological College, was ordained in 1992 and served his title in Southwark Diocese. He served as an NSM in St. Peter's, Clapham whilst working as a respiratory nurse specialist at the Royal Free Hospital Hampstead. In 2000 he moved over to chaplaincy, working first at University College London Hospitals NHS Trust before moving to St. Mary's in 2003 (which then merged with Hammersmith Hospitals and Imperial College in 2007). He completed the MTh in Chaplaincy Studies at St. Michael's Llandaff in 2010.

Stephen lives with his partner, Geoff, who is an accountant and has four children and one beautiful grand daughter.

Delivering Spiritual Care in the Acute Healthcare Setting:  A Shared Responsibility?

In a post-modern society, where for the last three decades organised religion has increasingly been replaced by an abundance of individual spiritualities, how do healthcare professionals understand spiritual care as part of patient centred healthcare and to what extent do they consider spiritual care to be part of their role?  Through a series of semi structured interviews and focus groups I intend to build up a comprehensive picture of how healthcare professionals from various disciplines view spiritual care as an activity which is part of their remit and to what extent they have been prepared for this task.  Then using a framework built on a theology of personhood I will develop a critical dialogue with the results of the research.  The outcome of this study will be an understanding of how the different healthcare disciplines approach the spiritual element of patient centred care and how this accords with a Christian theological understanding of the human person.  I would also envisage that this will be of use to chaplains in informing the development of future models of healthcare chaplaincy.

Information to follow

‘Live or let die’: Decision making in Critical Care

Using a Narrative research methodology that is staff focused, I intend to try and capture, understand, interpret and apply the “Stories” told by staff to gain an understanding of:

What motivates clinical staff to consider withholding or withdrawing treatment from a patient in critical care units; what influences them to proceed with the decision once the subject has been raised; what resources are available to help with the decision making process; in what ways Health care Chaplains can be involved, and how they can best contribute to the decision-making process.

Information to follow

The Role of the Anglican prison chaplain in England and Wales in the 21st Century.

My overarching research question is "What do Anglican prison chaplains think they are doing in the 21st century?"  This is essentially a piece of qualitative research using ethnographic methods of loosely structured interview and limited participant observation.  I have gathered data from a purposive sample of 35 Anglican prison chaplains and am currently analysing them against a coding set grounded in the early interviews and refined during the research process. An important part of the analysis relates to the experience of women chaplains and gender issues more widely.