ABSTRACT Although much is known about psychological safety in education, there is still much to be understood about student perspectives of psychological safety in secondary schools. This mixed methods study employed a phenomenological theoretical perspective to investigate school student experiences and perspectives of psychological safety and the implications for pastoral care for teachers through a pilot survey (n = 78) and focus group interviews (n = 14). A main research outcome was the phenomenological mapping of psychologically safe and unsafe experiences for a group of Year 10 school students. Study findings show that when students feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to put effort into their schoolwork. Students will only speak up and seek help when they feel confident to do so. Not all learning behaviours that are indicative of psychological safety in adult workplaces were evident in a secondary school context. These findings reveal how to engender psychological safety through teacher pastoral care to prepare school students for future work.

ABSTRACT Popular culture insists that time heals grief, yet qualitative research and pastoral experience tell a more complex story. This article investigates how healing in bereavement is mediated not primarily by the passage of time but by the grieving person’s gradual re-engagement with ordinary, embodied practices of daily life. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with six adults who had experienced significant loss – the death of a spouse, parent, or unborn child – the study identifies four recurring themes: the inadequacy of time as a solitary healer; the sacred weight of ordinary embodied practices; the healing power of silent, non-interventional presence; and the integration of grief into identity, faith, and vocation. The findings carry direct implications for pastoral ministry, arguing that caregivers must move beyond the funeral and the formal bereavement visit to accompany the bereaved in the rhythms of ordinary life, recognizing the sacred within the mundane.

There is a growing public support for medical interventions at the End of Life (EoL), such as euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (EPAS) and palliative sedation (PS). This paper explores pastors' views and their pastoral care on the place of EPAS and PS and uses a 2.556 pastors' survey. Whereas only 38% were in favour of EPAS, more than 90% could justify PS. This paper analyses the differences in pastors' attitudes regarding EPAS versus PS.

ABSTRACT This article explores how young people and Further Education (FE) lecturers in Wales construct, negotiate, and resist Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) within a devolved and uneven policy landscape. Drawing on feminist post-structuralist theory and Foucauldian discourse analysis, the study analyses interview and visual-elicitation data from 19 FE learners and 8 FE lecturers across South-East Wales. The analysis identifies three intersecting discursive constructions: risk and regulation, vulnerability and silence, and participation and negotiated voice. Across these constructions, RSE emerged as shaped by institutional, moral, and affective logics that governed what could be said, recognised, or addressed within FE contexts. Young people described previous experiences of risk-focused and often irrelevant RSE, while calling for more dialogic and relational approaches that reflected their digital and everyday realities. Lecturers described tensions between pastoral care, institutional accountability, workload pressures, and limited training or policy direction. The findings highlight FE as a distinctive but overlooked site within Welsh RSE reform, where relational education is constrained by non-statutory provision and wider cultures of performativity. The article contributes to debates on post-16 RSE by positioning sexuality education as a relational and institutional practice shaped by power, care, and participation.

ABSTRACT This article presents findings of a study designed to explore the perceptions of clinical therapists and those involved in pastoral care, in their work with LGBQ+ Orthodox Jews. A focus is placed on the strategies clinicians and those in other therapeutic roles employ to help these individuals navigate the complex balance of sexuality and faith. While this study focuses on a specific religious group, findings may offer insight to professionals working with individuals from other conservative faith traditions. The data on which this paper is based come from individual interviews held with a convenience sample of clinicians and those serving in pastoral roles, who have experience working with Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox LGBQ+ clients. Study participants offered insight about what it means to practice clinically with this population. The result was a series of rich narratives that revealed how clients navigate the tension between religious commitments and sexuality. Implications of study findings are discussed, highlighting the importance of practice approaches that center on accompanying clients on a journey rather than solution-focused interventions. Respondents emphasized that progress ought not be framed by how well clients integrate their two identities, or how close they are toward disclosure, but rather how well they tolerate psychosocial tension.

This study examines the meaning of Christian prayer as a response to pain, illness, and suffering among Filipino Catholics through an integrative thematic analysis of qualitative research and theological sources. Drawing on published qualitative studies of Filipino Catholic prayer practices in contexts of illness, trauma, adversity, and health-related suffering, the study identifies recurring themes regarding the lived experience and meaning of prayer. Using thematic analysis, key themes including surrender to God's will, hope amid suffering, endurance, relational trust, and communal support were identified and synthesized. These empirically derived themes were subsequently brought into dialogue with biblical, liturgical, and theological sources, particularly the Christian understanding of prayer as "the raising of one's mind and heart to God." The integrative analysis demonstrates that prayer functions not merely as a devotional practice but as a relational and transformative resource that enables Filipino Catholics to interpret suffering within a framework of faith, meaning, and hope. Rather than eliminating suffering, prayer helps believers reframe their experiences through trust in divine providence, spiritual resilience, and communal solidarity. The study contributes to pastoral theology and religion-and-health scholarship by highlighting prayer as a significant meaning-making practice that supports holistic well-being and offers implications for pastoral care and healthcare ministry.

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of pastors as educators, proposing a pedagogical model of ministry that integrates teaching with pastoral care. Drawing on practical theology and Freirean pedagogy, and using a case study methodology, the author argues that pastors should be equipped with pedagogical skills to foster holistic spiritual development within congregations. Through a personal teaching experience, the article illustrates how metaphors, inquiry-based learning, and interpretative wisdom can transform congregational learning spaces. The study emphasizes the need for seminary curricula to include pedagogical training in pastoral formation and advocates for a reimagining of the pastorate as a vocation of teaching and communal discernment.

ABSTRACT In contemporary China’s restrictive policy environment, specifically under the principle of separating religion from education, Catholic lay religious education faces significant institutional challenges. Based on extensive ethnographic research and archival analysis of a rural Catholic community in central China, this article examines how shanghui (上会) – a revived traditional practice – successfully achieves its educational function without triggering political sensitivity. The research reveals that shanghui‘s efficacy stems from ‘strategic integration’: skilfully embedding educational functions within the temporal framework of Spring Festival customs, the sacred space of Catholic liturgy, and the practical field of pastoral care. This multi-dimensional positioning generates a ‘triple legitimacy’, effectively transforming shanghui from potentially controversial ‘religious education’ into culturally acceptable ‘festival gatherings’, liturgically necessary ‘Mass preparation’, and pastorally legitimate ‘faith guidance’. By creating such ‘strategic ambiguity’, the community secures a sustainable space for faith transmission. This study illuminates the remarkable agency, adaptability and creativity of grassroots religious communities within specific socio-political contexts. Ultimately, it challenges the prevailing binary ‘oppression-resistance’ framework, offering new theoretical perspectives on understanding the operational logic of non-formal religious education under restrictive policy constraints.

ABSTRACT Mental health stigma within conservative Christian communities creates significant barriers to professional care-seeking, shaping help-seeking behavior in ways that leave many individuals without adequate support for serious mental illnesses (SMIs) such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Rooted in doctrinal beliefs that frame psychological distress as spiritual weakness or moral failing, this stigma does not disappear through clinical intervention alone. Rather, culturally competent practice must work within the context of existing stigma to facilitate engagement with mental health services and mitigate the barriers stigma creates. This paper proposes an integrated conceptual framework combining transpersonal theory, hope theory, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) that equips social workers to support conservative Christians in accessing care despite stigmatizing beliefs. Transpersonal theory frames mental health challenges as pathways for spiritual growth, aligning psychological care with the community’s core values. Hope theory emphasizes goal-setting, agency, and perseverance, resonating with Christian commitments to redemption and faith. IFS provides tools to address internal conflict, fostering self-compassion and reconciling faith identity with mental health needs. Collaboration with clergy and faith-based organizations is central to the framework, creating pathways for referral and shared language between pastoral and clinical care. Training social workers in faith-sensitive practices and developing mental health literacy among clergy are essential implementation strategies.

ABSTRACT This article engages with reflections on experiences of loneliness and social isolation of older people living in South Tyneside and the pastoral response of Churches Together South Tyneside. Of key interest is the learning that emerged in context of the Reflecting Together Project, a theological action research project held from November 2023 to November 2024. It addressed the concern that a fiscal approach in care imposes transactional encounters, which contribute to experiences of loneliness and social isolation of older people and carers alike. Similar patterns were found in the context of local churches. The claim is made that local churches have the potential to contribute significantly to the wellbeing of a local community by reimagining pastoral care through the practice of ‘incidental contacts’ and ‘little communities’. Consequently, this article engages in a prophetic public discourse and offers practical theological considerations that both improve pastoral responses and speak to a society that diminishes the agency and full humanity of older people.

This issue of JORH considers religious, pastoral and spiritual care research undertaken in Brazil, as well as an exploration of research by, and about, nursing and spirituality in non-Western countries. It finally notes the provision and differences between religious, pastoral and spiritual care practice within a variety of contexts and countries.

ABSTRACT Pastors in the Netherlands are gaining more experience with pastoral care in the context of euthanasia. According to previous quantitative research, there are considerable differences in the way pastors care for parishioners who wish to die by euthanasia. This qualitative study, based on interviews with 22 pastors from the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, describes pastoral care in the context of a euthanasia request and asks two questions: What experiences do pastors report from these settings? And what moral and religious considerations do they have regarding euthanasia? We compare the themes that emerged from our interviews with other prominent models of pastoral care at the end of life. This may help us move towards developing pastoral best practices in the euthanasia context.

ABSTRACT This study explores how poetry operates across distinct phases of cumulative, multi-layered trauma through the life history of a Ukrainian-American poet-songwriter and military chaplain who survived religious persecution in the USSR, military conscription, coercive psychiatric hospitalization, imprisonment, migration, and personal loss, and currently serves during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Drawing on qualitative life-history research and analysis of the respondent's poetry, findings indicate that poetic expression is not continuously accessible during trauma; rather, it is suspended during acute survival states and re-emerges retrospectively as a mechanism of integration, meaning-making, and identity reconstruction. Across the life trajectory, poetry functions as a private container of selfhood under stigma, a delayed narrative integrator of traumatic experience, a medium for transforming grief and reconfiguring attitudes toward death, and a relational and spiritual resource within pastoral care. This study extends poetry therapy scholarship beyond structured interventions, highlighting poetry as a context-dependent, lifelong adaptive practice at the intersection of trauma, spirituality, and systemic violence.

ABSTRACT Enrollment in construction and infrastructure apprenticeships in New Zealand has not kept up with demand, and completion rates are low by international standards. The Construction and Infrastructure Centre of Vocational Excellence (ConCOVE) commissioned a study into what improvements are required, focussed on public policy settings and government funding of apprenticeship support programs. The mixed-methods research approach included document and literature review, data analysis, international comparison, interviews with 38 stakeholders and interviews and focus groups with eight apprentices and six employers. Eight critical areas requiring intervention were identified: overlapping policy initiatives prioritizing participation over completion, persistent apprentice financial barriers, inconsistent pastoral care delivery, variable employer training quality, misaligned economic and financial incentives, fragmented apprenticeship resources, poor role clarity between government, employers, and training providers, and unclear national strategic direction of apprenticeships. Recommendations offered aim to improve system efficiency and ensure the system better delivers for employers, learners, and national labor productivity.

ABSTRACT Care is widely recognised as an important aspect of school life, yet there is little empirical research examining how care is understood and enacted in post-primary (secondary) schools at an organisational level. This paper examines how care is organised, experienced, supported, and constrained within the Education and Training Board (ETB) post-primary sector in Ireland, where care is officially recognised as a core value. Focusing on leadership at the whole-school level, the study aims to explore the gap between care as an espoused ethos or policy aspiration and care as an enacted organisational practice. A sector wide survey was used to collect quantitative data which measured perceptions of care provision and qualitative data examining challenges in the provision of care and the supports required across the sector. Findings indicate that care is experienced through a range of organisational practices, including leadership approaches and structures for pastoral care. This study makes visible the labour through which care is sustained in practice and acknowledges that it is time-consuming, emotionally demanding and unevenly resourced. Participants identified systemic and resource-related challenges that impact the consistent enactment of care across the sector. The study contributes to understanding of care as an organisational construct and highlights implications for educational leadership.

On April 15, 2026, Pope Leo XIV delivered a landmark address at Unity Palace, the official residence of President Paul Biya in Yaoundé, Cameroon, during the second leg of his eleven-day Apostolic journey to Africa. Addressing heads of state, military generals, civil society leaders, and diplomats, the Pope’s speech stood out for its direct engagement with corruption, political authority, human rights, and national unity. Drawing on Augustinian theology, postcolonial ethics, and Catholic social teaching, Leo XIV’s address exemplifies what scholars may term ‘prophetic diplomacy’: pontifical speech that blends pastoral care with candid political critique. This article contends that the Pope strategically applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) using four primary rhetorical strategies and five central thematic clusters to simultaneously urge spiritual reflection, demand postcolonial accountability, and affirm solidarity with Cameroon’s marginalized communities. The article situates these findings within the wider tradition of papal diplomacy in sub-Saharan Africa.

Spiritual needs are a core dimension of palliative care, yet their systematic documentation remains limited. This study explores the spiritual needs expressed by palliative care inpatients and examines how these needs vary in documentation based on gender, below and above the Swiss retirement age, religious affiliation, and specialty documenting them. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 747 electronic health records (EHRs) from the Acute Palliative Care Unit at the University Hospital Zurich (2019-2022). Documentation by psychological and pastoral care services was analyzed using qualitative content analysis along with chi-square test for explorative purposes. Identified needs were categorized according to an adapted four-domain framework (existential, psychological, social/relational, religious). A total of 598 patients were analyzed (median age 68 years (20-97), 52.8% (n = 316) male). We identified 22 distinct spiritual needs. Overall, 61.2% (n = 366) of patients expressed existential needs, 78.9% (n = 472) psychological needs, 66.2% 396) social/relational needs, and 17.4% (n = 104) religious needs. The most common spiritual needs were life reflection (55.5%, n = 332), relationship and family dynamics (43.6%, n = 337), and history of illness (26.8%, n = 160). Women reported significantly more existential fears (p < 0.001), relational themes (p = 0.005), and requests for prayer (p = 0.028). Patients below the retirement age exhibited more needs, including fears (p = 0.019), grief (p = 0.002), and hope (p < 0.001) compared to older patients. Religious affiliation was associated with prayer (p = 0.003) and anointing of the sick (p = 0.036). Psychological services documented spiritual needs in 86.1% of cases (mainly existential and psychological needs), whereas pastoral care (53%) focused on religious themes, including all mentions of sacramental rituals. This is the first Swiss study to classify spiritual needs based on routine clinical documentation. The findings highlight the prevalence and multidimensionality of spiritual concerns, with psychological needs being most frequently documented, and significant differences observed by age, gender, and religious affiliation. Distinct documentation patterns emerged between psychological and pastoral care, underlining the need for structured assessment tools and interprofessional collaboration. Implementing standardized documentation and training could enhance the visibility and continuity of spiritual care and guide future research and clinical practice.

This essay uses the narrative approach to reflect on Luke 24:13-35 in relation to the ministry of healthcare Chaplains besides its application to various theological and pastoral paradigms. It illustrates how the text inspires spiritual accompaniment, informs spiritual assessment, directs pastoral interventions, and guides boundaries in pastoral care for the sick in healthcare settings. It encourages Chaplains to foster and evoke the attitude of compassionate curiosity in patients to aid them engage with the truth of their own health conditions, no matter what, to find meaning, strength and hope in their own sufferings and pain. It finally invites Chaplains to consider their role as a prophetic witness to the truth of the mystery of the human being. Against the backdrop of the story, the article ignites the reader to search for answers to the questions: What is the context of hospital chaplaincy ministry discovered in Luke 24:13-35? What pastoral attitudes of Jesus are evident in the gospel pericope? And how do these pastoral attitudes serve as the “Jesus-factor" to inform the decision and skills of Christian Chaplains on the one hand and inspires Healthcare Chaplaincy Ministry in general on the other hand?

Ordination vows or commitments are sacred covenants undertaken before God and the Church, necessitating that clerics uphold doctrinal fidelity, personal purity, canonical obedience, and diligent pastoral care. This study examines the ordination vows of clergy within the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), with emphasis on their theological, spiritual, liturgical, and pastoral significance within Anglican ministry. It contextualizes these vows by highlighting the inherent relationship between spiritual commitment and ecclesiastical accountability within the framework of episcopal oversight and canonical governance of the Church of Nigeria. Through a comprehensive analysis of each vow, the study underscores the significance of steadfast adherence and the consequences of non-compliance, including moral compromise, liturgical inconsistencies, erosion of ecclesiastical authority, and diminished ministerial credibility. Additionally, it examines contextual challenges specific to the Church of Nigeria, such as cultural expectations, economic limitations, patronage networks, and inconsistent disciplinary enforcement, all of which complicate clergy adherence to their vows. Drawing upon Anglican ecclesiology and pastoral theology, this study argues that diligent observance of the ordination vows is vital for the spiritual growth of clergy and the preservation of the Church's unity, mission, and public witness. The study offers theological and practical recommendations, including enhanced spiritual formation, mentorship programs, transparent disciplinary procedures, culturally sensitive pastoral practices, and increased lay participation in accountability structures. Ordination vows constitute a lifelong commitment that defines and shapes clergy in terms of their identity, integrity, and effectiveness, thereby ensuring their ministry within the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) remains faithful, credible, and firmly grounded in its spiritual and ecclesiastical foundations.

This opinion piece recounts experiences of an educator teaching analogue and digital games in Poland, focusing on challenges that are regionally specific set to the Central Eastern European region. More than an autoethnographically conceived account, the piece functions as an act of witnessing certain inescapable facets of daily life at university in Poland. These challenges included structural, institutional, financial, and mental-health related issues that affect scholars and students alike. The piece is written to be an honest reckoning with the exigencies of university teaching, intended as a counterweight to a culture of strategic communication that overemphasises success stories, partly to raise the appeal of a particular educational institution, partly to generate self-perceived individual agency in the face of much larger structural forces that are less conducive to excellence.