Belfast Met's Gerry Skelton - Interview on Spirituality
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- New resource: An interview with Gerry Skelton discussing 'Social Work and Spirituality'. Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE, 2014).
Warmest greetings to One and All. I just wanted to share a few words of gratitude and introduce what I hope will be a helpful resource to your thinking, feeling and practice about the centrality of spirituality in our individual and collective lives.
As many of you are aware, I have been championing the inclusion of spirituality in the social work (and related) professions, and challenging the education, training and practice arenas to embrace this legitimate, nascent but often neglected and 'tabooised' theme. Indeed, I passionately contend that spirituality represents something of a zeitgeist for the 21st Century!
So a BIG thank you to all who have helped me in a myriad of ways; through your personal and professional encouragement, enthusiasm, challenge, and 'believing' in the value of this work and the contribution I have tried to make.
To this end, can I specifically thank the following 4 people for endorsing the wider dissemination of this interview, wherein I addressed spirituality for a Northern Trust 'Celebrating Social Work' event. The Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) has agreed to the inclusion of this resource on their website...and I invite you all to view it, but only after reading these comments.
In humble service and deepest gratitude, Gerry.
"We believe at Belfast Met that Gerry Skelton is exploring new ground that has important outcomes for students and their potential as practitioners. He is attempting to increase their creativity and problem solving ability by assisting them to consider the purpose of what they do. This interview is a powerful mechanism". Marie-Therese McGivern, Belfast Met Principal and Chief Executive. www.belfastmet.ac.uk
"I would encourage anyone to listen to Gerry Skelton's interview about spirituality and social work. His passion for social work clearly comes across and he is able to explain key concepts relating to this important and neglected area in social work in jargon free and easily understandable terms. I would support his call for religion and spirituality to be given greater prominence in the social work curriculum". Dr Sheila Furness, Social Work Programme Director, University of Bradford. Shelia has also published in the area of religion, belief and spirituality -- you can see more at www.bradford.ac.uk/ssis/social-work/academic-profiles/sheila-furness
"In this interview Gerry Skelton defines spirituality and its relevance to social work practice for practitioners and service users, carers and survivors. It is an issue and a set of ideas that was central to many of the founding principles of social work, and it is good to have spirituality re-visited and theorised for the twenty first century. In doing so Gerry poses some critical questions for social work as a profession, and for social educators in particular -- how do we create the space to explore this for ourselves and its relevance to social work in different contexts? I welcome this resource and Gerry's significant contribution, and look forward to the evolving debate about this important issue". Dr John Devaney, Director of Social Work Education, Queen's University Belfast. www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Schoolof...
"This video provides an introduction to spirituality and highlights the importance of considering the spiritual needs of people who use services. It is a welcome addition to help students and practitioners in thinking and learning about this topic". Dr Shirley Ewart-Boyle, Practice Development Manager (NI) Social Care Institute for Excellence: www.scie.co.uk
The interview with Gerry Skelton discussing the theme of spirituality in social work and related implications can be found on SCIE via: beta.scie-socialcareonline.org...
This is an excellent piece on a subject which is often ignored within Social Work. Gerry challenges us to explore the importance of spirituality in working with the individual. He does not shy away from discussing and raising the profile of core issues, such as homelessness in his now well celebrated Homeless Panel Event. As we have come to expect this is a quality interview from a highly professional lecturer, a credit to his profession. Mary O'Brien Service Manager, Associate Director of Social Work BHSCT
I had the opportunity to meet Gerry at an international diversity conference in Bradford, England this past June. Not only is he a delightful person...his compassion and brilliance is exemplified in his work. This interview on spirituality certainly lifted my spirit! And, Gerry articulates so well the importance of including spirituality in particular within the realm of social work. Bully for you, Gerry...you tell it like it is!!
Lovely, accessible and enthusiastic short discussion on spirituality in the context of social work. Spirituality remains rather marginalised in social work discourse, and students are often taught that it has no place in social work. But here Gerry talks about spirituality in a way that, surely, most everyone would agree is meaningful and acceptable. How much richer would social work not be if we cared for the whole person, including their spiritual life, rather than just certain parts of the person. Thanks Gerry!
This interview is indeed an excellent and extremely significant representation of a subject that is very rarely touched upon within the realms of social work learning or for that matter social work practice as a whole. As one of Gerry’s former tutee’s I have had the pleasure of experiencing first-hand the passion with which he champions the plight of the important yet disregarded issues that should be a significant part of our vocation. As social work students within Belfast Met, Gerry opened our eyes to those unspoken subjects such as spirituality and homelessness which ignited a spark within me and spurred me on to also champion the plight of the homeless. To that end I am truly delighted to have recently been successful in gaining a position within the Simon Community NI. In reaching this personal goal I owe a great deal of gratitude to Gerry for enlightening us on the struggles that these issues face in getting their rightful recognition and I aim to continue that quest with the same enthusiasm, motivation and passion that he has shown us throughout our journey.
Ken Skilling-former social work student @ Belfast Met. kenskilling@hotmail.co.uk
This is such an important aspect of social work - wonderful work to Gerry and Gillian for making this video and championing this essential and valuable aspect of life and our profession.
I have watched this video a number of times and on each occasion have taken something extra from it. I have been guilty of having a restricted interpretation of spirituality and therefore its place in social work. Your video has expanded my understanding and motivated me to recognise its importance in what we do. I look forward with interest to an increased and wider dialogue on this important topic. Thank you for sharing this resource Gerry and Gillian.
Good holistic approach for social workers in their work assisting people. Thank you.
This is a fantastic resource from Gerry Skelton, a fearless and courageous champion of often taboo subjects in and outside of social work. Spirituality is the very essence of who we are and should be a central concern of any helper, as Gerry has been highlighting for many years now, and this video makes such a significant contribution.
This interview is an important contribution to what should be a major component of training in all the helping professions. The inclusive definition of spirituality is particularly valuable in that it emanates from “praxis” rather than conceptual formulation. The discussion following is courageous, challenging and enabling. The context of Northern Ireland is mightily important, but the message is for all involved in preparing trainees to go out there and engage with the whole person, body mind and spirit. Peter Martin Network Lead, BPS Division of Counselling Psychology
This excellent video clip opens up the topic of spiritulaity in a warm and accessible way. Gerry speaks from the heart as well as with his head. He helps us appreciate that this is a topic that concerns our basic humanity and not some specialised or zany hobbyhorse that can safely be left as irrelevant to the real world. He argues persuasively that social workers need to engage with this crucial theme.
Bernard Moss - Emeritus Professor of Social Work Education and Spirituality, Staffordshire University, Principal Fellow and National Teaching Fellow, Higher Education Academy UK
Wow! As a former tutee of Gerry, his passion and determination in bringing taboo subjects such as this to the fore was a highlight of my learning. The subjectivist spirituality however, when forming, developing and maintaining close and positive working relationships with both Carers and service users alike, is one which must be addressed. As Gerry has noted, we as human beings all have something which lifts our spirits....surely truly holistic social work practice therefore should encompass and embrace such positives utilising them in all stages of the social work cycle. For such practice to develop however, spirituality needs to be incorporated throughout social work training and professional development.
Such a great wee video guys. I love the challenge of integrating spirituality into our professional work, as well as our whole lives. For me, if we really are physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual beings, the idea of stopping being spiritual at work is like stopping being fully human at work.
It's interesting that the word "spirit" finds aspects of it's definition in "breath" in 3 languages (Ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin) that i know of. Spirituality is deeply connected to breathing, and breathing brings life. As someone once wrote, "Life is but a breath". Love this :)
This is an excellent pointer to the problem of handling religion, belief and spirituality in the public sphere broadly, and in professional practice in particular. Social workers and all of us are in daily encounter with religion and belief plurality yet we teach our public professions as though religion and spirituality are a thing of the past. I agree with Gerry that we have a massive task ahead of us to rethink our approach and revise curricula to engage thoughtfully and informedly with this aspect of billions of people's identities, regardless of our own religion, belief or none.
This video is an important resource which raises salient and challenging issues for the social work profession and how we work and assess holistically. Spirituality is an important strand of well being which promotes hope and recovery and I am grateful to Gerry for starting a purposeful and grounded discussion of this important dimension of strengths based social work practice. Dr Sukhwinder Singh
A wonderfully challenging piece. I have tried to champion many issues with Gerry in the past and this piece is another example of the huge role social work, coalescing with spirituality, has and can have in everyone's lives, whatever stage of life they might be at and whatever challenges they might face.
This was an interesting video indeed. I believe the issue and area of spirituality should indeed be part and parcel of how we work with people within social work. In a society such as Northern Ireland is, having come through many decades of violence based on broadly religious/national identity grounds this issue should be tackled sensitively. But it should be tackled.
lovely video with some interesting ideas on the concept of spirituality and social work :)
“We believe at Belfast Met that Gerry Skelton is exploring new ground that has important outcomes for students and their potential as practitioners. He is attempting to increase their creativity and problem solving ability by assisting them to consider the purpose of what they do. This interview is a powerful mechanism”. Marie-Therese McGivern, Belfast Met Principal and Chief Executive. www.belfastmet.ac.uk
Thank you for very interesting and thought provoking video. It made me reflect on this area in a way I hadn't done before and reframe some of my previous practice with a spiritual lens. Spirituality can be a bit of a scary word if we haven't really decided what it means for us, or perhaps have a limited view of it's meaning. I see spirituality as a universal human experience that defines the values by which we live and the purpose / meaning we attribute to our lives, in other words what we are about, what is important to us and why. In my experience, incorporating spirituality into Social Work supervision can bring added value to the experience. It enhances the potential to make supervision a space for personal and professional growth and development, rather than simply a monitoring forum.The practice of good supervision that helps us develop to our greatest potential naturally involves exploring spirituality, even if this is not expliciity stated. It does so by: Openly and compassionately challenging and exploring the values and beliefs that inform our practice (and our lives); exploring what we want to achieve in our practice (our purpose); addressing ethical dilemmas (which are often challenges to our values and beliefs) and exploring ways to develop more meaningful connection with the people we work with.
I would encourage anyone to listen to Gerry Skelton’s interview about spirituality and social work. His passion for social work clearly comes across and he is able to explain key concepts relating to this important and neglected area in social work in jargon free and easily understandable terms. I would support his call for religion and spirituality to be given greater prominence in the social work curriculum”. Dr Sheila Furness, Social Work Programme Director, University of Bradford. Shelia has also published in the area of religion, belief and spirituality - you can see more at www.bradford.ac.uk/ssis/social-work/academic-profiles/sheila-furness
Link can’t be found
Totally agree, Love this!!
Hi, first of all, wow, a brilliant talk. Thanks for sharing. Secondly, I have found a similar reluctance when trying to talk about the role of love in social work. In the same way as spirituality gets confused with religion so love gets confused with sexuality. For me it is a reality that I love my students, I care deeply about them, their needs, interests, hopes and dreams, but at the same time I sometimes think this is frowned upon surprising or unprofessional. Thirdly, in terms of the name I suspect that a biopsychosociospiritual model will be too easily misunderstood and treated with suspicion. I wonder if a "transpersonal biopsychosocial model" might be both more accurate and inclusive, and so be easier for people to accept.
One of the things I tell my students is "if you are the biggest thing you have in your life then you will lead a small life." At some level most people know that. Whether you are taking Holy Communion or singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on the Kop at Anfield, whether it is the loving embrace of another or standing on Mam Tor and looking along the Hope Valley, there is a sense of the 'bigger than me' that is vital to well-being and is profoundly spiritual.
In this interview Gerry Skelton defines spirituality and its relevance to social work practice for practitioners and service users, carers and survivors. It is an issue and a set of ideas that was central to many of the founding principles of social work, and it is good to have spirituality re-visited and theorised for the twenty first century. In doing so Gerry poses some critical questions for social work as a profession, and for social educators in particular - how do we create the space to explore this for ourselves and its relevance to social work in different contexts? I welcome this resource and Gerry’s significant contribution, and look forward to the evolving debate about this important issue”. Dr John Devaney, Director of Social Work Education, Queen’s University Belfast. www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofSociologySocialPolicySocialWork/Staff/AcademicStaff/JohnDevaney/
This is an excellent resource which addresses a theme that is often neglected within social work training and practice. Gerry's catchall phrase is very thought provoking, as is his reference to the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. I am looking forward to using this resource to prompt discussions with students about spirituality in social work practice. Thank you for sharing this! www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofSociologySocialPolicySocialWork/Staff/AcademicStaff/AudreyRoulston/
This video provides an introduction to spirituality and highlights the importance of considering the spiritual needs of people who use services. It is a welcome addition to help students and practitioners in thinking and learning about this topic". Dr Shirley Ewart-Boyle, Practice Development Manager (NI) Social Care Institute for Excellence: www.scie.co.uk
It IS a legit topic
Well said