This is the first book to explore how religion, belief and spirituality are negotiated in hospice care. Specifically, it considers the significant place that spiritual care has in hospice care and claims that the changing role of religion and belief in society highlights the need to re-examine how such identities are integrated in professional practice. Using religious literacy as a framework, the author explores how healthcare professionals in hospice care respond to religion, belief and spiritual identities of service users. Part 1 provides a comprehensive account of the content and history of the place of religion, belief and spirituality in hospice care. Part 2 examines how these topics are negotiated in hospice care by looking at three key areas: environment, professional practice and organisation. Part 3 proposes a religious literacy model applicable to hospice care and explores implications for practice and policy. Lastly, the author identifies future trends in research, policy and practice. Drawing on a range of theories and concepts and proposing a working model that can impact the training of future and current professionals, Religious Literary in Hospice Care should be considered essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners.

Explores the end-of-life spiritual needs of people who do not identify with traditional religions. This groundbreaking book addresses the spiritual aspect of hospice care for those who do not fit easily within traditional religious beliefs and categories. A companion volume to Religious Understandings of a Good Death in Hospice Palliative Care, this work also advocates for renewed attention to the spiritual, the often overlooked element of hospice care. Drawing on data from clinical case studies, new sociological research, and the perspectives of agnostics, atheists, those who emphasize the spiritual rather than institutional dimensions of a traditional religion, and the rapidly growing cohort of those who describe themselves as spiritual-but-not-religious, the contributors to this volume interpret the shift from predominantly Christian-based pastoral services to a new approach to “the spiritual” shaped by the increasing diversity of Western societies and new understandings of the nature of secular society. How do we use it in a way that enables caregivers to assist patients? Clinicians and policy makers will appreciate the book’s practical recommendations regarding staff roles, training, and resource allocation. General readers will be moved by the persuasive call for greater religious and spiritual literacy at every level of health care in order to respond to the full spectrum of human needs in life and in death.

Winner of the 2012 AJN (American Journal of Nursing) Book of the Year Award in the Hospice and Palliative Care category In the 1960s, English physician and committed Christian Cicely Saunders introduced a new way of treating the terminally ill that she called "hospice care." Emphasizing a holistic and compassionate approach, her model led to the rapid growth of a worldwide hospice movement. Aspects of the early hospice model that stressed attention to the religious dimensions of death and dying, while still recognized and practiced, have developed outside the purview of academic inquiry and consideration. Meanwhile, global migration and multicultural diversification in the West have dramatically altered the profile of contemporary hospice care. In response to these developments, this volume is the first to critically explore how religious understandings of death are manifested and experienced in palliative care settings. Contributors discuss how a "good death" is conceived within the major religious traditions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Chinese religion, and Aboriginal spirituality. A variety of real-world examples are presented in case studies of a Buddhist hospice center in Thailand, Ugandan approaches to dying with HIV/AIDS, Punjabi extended-family hospice care, and pediatric palliative care. The work sheds new light on the significance of religious belief and practice at the end of life, at the many forms religious understanding can take, and at the spiritual pain that so often accompanies the physical pain of the dying person.

Elaborating with the concepts of culture and religious literacy, this volume examines theoretical, methodological and empirical aspects of the practice and study of religion and non-religion, culture, spirituality and worldviews within healthcare. In modern multi-cultural and multi-religious societies, a host of new issues have arisen concerning culture, religion and spirituality within healthcare, especially when people face serious and life-limiting illness. Healthcare professionals are faced with challenges addressing and handling patients’ cultural expressions of religiosity, spirituality and existential concerns. The variety needs to be met without essentializing the concepts of culture and religion, and with an ability to include the non-religious as well as new types of spiritualities. This collection reflects on the tension between cultural, religious and spiritual dimensions of care in a secularized healthcare institution and describes implications of this tension for healthcare professionals and patients. The book engages with an ongoing scholarly discussion about religious literacy in healthcare, and contributes perspectives, experiences and empirical examples from the Nordic countries, especially Sweden. It gives suggestions for practical application of research to healthcare practice, highlighting challenges and ideas for how to integrate religious, non-religious, and spiritual dimensions in care. This is an important contribution to the literature on religious literacy and provides a vital reference for students, scholars and healthcare professionals with an interest in the complex relationship between culture, spirituality, and religion in healthcare.

Table of contents: Spiritual assessment / Elizabeth Johnston Taylor Spiritual care intervention / Rev. Pamela Baird Cultural considerations in palliative care / Polly Mazanec and Joan T. Panke Meaning in illness / Tami Borneman and Katherine Brown-Saltzman The meaning of hope in the dying / Valerie T. Cotter and Anessa M. Foxwell.

Publishing on the 50th anniversary of the opening of St Christopher's Hospice - widely thought of to be the first modern hospice, combining pain and symptom management with education and training - this edited collection discusses what motivates professionals and volunteers to provide spiritual care. This book shows how the world of hospice care is moving on from Cicely Saunder's, founder of St Christopher's Hospice, legacy to providing spiritual care in a more integrated manner. With entries from doctors, nurses and CEOs among others, this book informs good practice for professionals and volunteers providing spiritual care for patients and their families. It looks at how, for many of these professionals, spirituality does not have to be grounded in organised religion, but stems from understanding and providing for our human needs.

The Handbook of Health Social Work provides a comprehensive and evidence-based overview of contemporary social work practice in health care. Written from a wellness perspective, the chapters cover the spectrum of health social work settings with contributions from a wide range of experts. The resulting resource offers both a foundation for social work practice in health care and a guide for strategy, policy, and program development in proactive and actionable terms. Three sections present the material: The Foundations of Social Work in Health Care provides information that is basic and central to the operations of social workers in health care, including conceptual underpinnings; the development of the profession; the wide array of roles performed by social workers in health care settings; ethical issues and decision - making in a variety of arenas; public health and social work; health policy and social work; and the understanding of community factors in health social work. Health Social Work Practice: A Spectrum of Critical Considerations delves into critical practice issues such as theories of health behavior; assessment; effective communication with both clients and other members of health care teams; intersections between health and mental health; the effects of religion and spirituality on health care; family and health; sexuality in health care; and substance abuse. Health Social Work: Selected Areas of Practice presents a range of examples of social work practice, including settings that involve older adults; nephrology; oncology; chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS; genetics; end of life care; pain management and palliative care; and alternative treatments and traditional healers. The first book of its kind to unite the entire body of health social work knowledge, the Handbook of Health Social Work is a must-read for social work educators, administrators, students, and practitioners.