Heart and Soul Strategy 2024-26

Introduction

The NHS is fundamentally an act of love. At its heart is the centrality of relationships, rooted in the responsibility that all citizens have for one another. CPFT’s Heart and Soul Service creates spaces, places, and ways to promote this belief and to give people an experience of it. This strategy captures what we have achieved as a spiritual wellbeing, pastoral, and religious care service, as well as our role as a catalyst for change in CPFT and local communities. It also outlines steps that will guide us in the coming years.

One of the most important strategic decisions we made in our last strategy was adopting the Heart and Soul name, with the motto "Being human together". We aimed to transform our service from one that is chaplaincy-centric and rooted in a history with organised religion into one that is free of these constraints. Our goal is to be creative and permissive in exploring what it means to be human, whether spiritual, religious, or not, and to be a spiritually diverse and pluralistic community. This is crucial, especially in mental healthcare, where we must see and put the person first.

For example, someone we helped called Michael told us that all he ever needed was spirituality and to be treated as a human being. He’d realised how much this had been lacking in the mental health care he’d received now that he was in hospice care. Many things have changed for the better in mental health care since then, but there is always further to go. Of course, we share the same loving intentions as our colleagues in cancer care: not only to be as person-centred and close to the people we are supporting as possible, but also to be led by them. Which is why we are always mindful of the human dimension most of all. It’s something we build on in Heart and Soul. We encourage people like Michael to consider joining us to support their peers.

Heart and Soul is committed to offering non-judgemental loving kindness whenever someone engages with its volunteers, chaplains, peer workers, or colleagues. And because Heart and Soul thrives on autonomy, agency, and accountability, we demonstrate our commitment to this by continuing to transform what used to be a purely chaplaincy service, by empowering volunteers, peer workers, and colleagues to lead us where we need to go.

 

CPFT is a heart and soul organisation

CPFT is committed to consistently improving and humanizing the experience of both receiving and delivering its services. In tough and challenging times like these, it is especially important to take a moment to remember the abounding good practice, humanity, compassion, and kindness that is shown in different places around the Trust. Here is a sample:

Schwartz Rounds
This is a psychologically safe, reflective space where facilitated, confidential conversations around a theme occur. People are free to be more their true selves, without judgment, and are encouraged to be compassionately curious about each other’s experiences and the impact of their work on their emotional well-being.

The Community Butterfly Service
Volunteers will be recruited and trained to support individuals receiving end-of-life care who may have few visitors or whose family and friends need respite. This partnership between the Anne Robson Trust, CPFT’s charity Head to Toe, and its Volunteer Service will mark the first community-based launch of a Butterfly Service, with visits taking place in people’s homes.

The Compassionate Manager and Compassionate Leader programmes
Trains colleagues in the four pillars of attending (being present), understanding, empathising, and helping - essential skills and qualities for leading a 21st-century healthcare organisation.

Healthcare Support Workers
Received the Silver NHS Pastoral Care Quality Award in 2023. This initiative is led by a team known for integrating empathy into their practice, seeing people as individuals first.

The co-production with CPFT’s RCE Wellbeing Hub course called 'Living a meaningful life', bringing the learning from deep and comprehensive research into positive psychology and blending it with an exploration of what has meaning for each student.

Hope Kit
A Heart and Soul Service podcast conversation with colleagues and partners about those things in our lives that have meaning for us.

The Compassion in Action Programme
For all staff and at all levels, building on the Trust’s ambition to be a more compassionate and inclusive workplace by improving self-awareness, emotional intelligence and the confidence to better support colleagues and manage teams.

Selfcare mornings
With Heart and Soul chaplains, peer workers, and the Staff Wellbeing Service. Building on two day-long retreats for health and social care colleagues across the system, these mornings are micro retreats, focusing on mindfulness, noticing in nature, and using self-talk positively.

There is growing demand from non-mental health community services for Heart and Soul’s Team to contribute to holistic care and staff support. But Heart and Soul was only ever funded to deliver a service within CPFT’s mental health care services. So, there is a significant and growing gap. Beginning to address this will be crucial in the next three years, especially as CPFT’s own strategy aspires to "Embed Heart and Soul into our organisation for the benefit of staff, patients, and their families and carers" (Trust Strategy, 2023-26, People at the Heart of Everything We Do, p.12). A successful campaign will be required to make a case for, and to fund, new work. The recruitment of a new Heart and Soul Lead, late in 2024, should have this in mind, and appeal to candidates with a flair for meeting new demand with funded provision. But overall, a strategic approach to embedding Heart and Soul ought to combine the forces and the reach of the Heart and Soul Service, Head to Toe, Voluntary Services, other strategic services, initiatives, directors, and the Communications Team.

The Heart and Soul Service

The Heart and Soul Service is a mental healthcare service. We have cultivated an environment where everyone truly feels at home. We are guided by the people in our care, our volunteers, peer workers, and partners. This is why, in addition to ongoing, regular one-to-one pastoral, spiritual, or religious support for those requesting it in both hospital and community settings, many valuable social activities, group activities, and creative initiatives have emerged. These include:

• Groups for gentle conversation and mutual support between peers.
• A Zoom friendship group for carers.
• Wednesday mindfulness meditation for all-comers across the system.
• A Zoom fortnightly discussion group on the world of faith and belief.
• A weekly Zoom prayer group for carers to meet and pray.
• PAT dog
• Heart and Soul volunteers.
• A Sunday morning gathering for prayer, reflection, mindfulness, and coffee chat.
• Wednesday Coffee Clubs in Peterborough and Cambridge for gentle conversation, good company, and mutual support.
• Bereavement support groups.

We are comprised of:

• 20-30 volunteers
• A full-time chaplain in Cambridge
• A chaplain in Peterborough (four days a week)
• A Muslim Chaplain in Peterborough and Cambridge (three days a week)
• A peer worker in the Resource Centre, Fulbourn Hospital (one day a week)
• A peer worker in The Cavell Centre, Peterborough (two days a week)
• Allies and partners among colleagues in CPFT and the wider community

The Heart and Soul community reflects the vibrant tapestry of our diverse population. Our goal is for every staff member, patient, family, and caregiver engaging with us to see a reflection of themselves. In this way, we cultivate an environment where everyone truly feels at home.

In recent meetings to review the Heart and Soul service with stakeholders, clinicians strongly emphasized the importance of retaining the expertise of specialist mental health chaplains. They highlighted that these chaplains are invaluable in addressing complex and challenging aspects of caring for individuals whose lived experiences include religious features. These elements are often crucial for the development of a more integrated and mature spirituality in the individuals they care for. When clinicians are uncertain about how to understand or address these aspects, specialist chaplains step in with confidence.

Chaplains provide organised religious and spiritual care for those who request it, frequently assisting individuals on a one-to-one basis. Given their trusted and established relationships with local faith leaders, Heart and Soul chaplains sometimes refer individuals to these leaders, provided they have received permission to do so.

Heart and Soul is proud to be a partner with CPFT’s Voluntary Services, and Head to Toe , CPFT’s Charity. With them, we can bring life to some of the ideas our volunteers want to pursue. For example, one of Heart and Soul’s volunteers set up the Living Room Group, in Cambridge. And he achieved this with the help and involvement of Heart and Soul, Voluntary Services, and Head to Toe.

The Living Room project came out of Heart and Soul supporting the creative enterprise of a volunteer. He has recently consolidated the group’s work by successfully registering as a charity and has begun to widen the scope of its offer to vulnerable people interested in exploring creative ways to recovery.

Heart and Soul Service promotes healing and wholeness, and the belief that we are all here to live a meaningful life*, some of us against almost impossible odds. It is our privilege and honour to dedicate ourselves to fostering and developing healing relationships with people in our care as they rebuild their lives, and to do this with loving kindness. The Heart and Soul Service will continue to be universal and humanistic in its promotion of Spirituality as something that is good for us as people, holistically. Its chaplains, peer workers, volunteers and colleagues will cooperate in exploring what it means to be human, together.

 

Appendix 1

The regular Heart and Soul weekly programme: see https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/heartandsoul

Online and telephone

Podcasts focused on meaningful conversations:

• All I ever needed https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/uU8S5cn9QBb]
• Hope Kit https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/Fvh5Kz88QBb]
• Being a hopeful organisation https://youtu.be/A9pW4ZYxpd4

Weekly

• Zoom friendship groups for gentle conversation and mutual support between peers.
• Zoom friendship group for carers.
• Daily [during lockdown] and then Wednesday mindfulness meditation for all-comers across the system.

Fortnightly

Zoom fortnightly discussion group on the world of faith and belief.

Monthly

Supervision and support groups for volunteers, with chaplains.

Telephone and text

Individual befriending support given by volunteers with lived experience and/or trained in mental health matters.

In person

• Home, community, and hospital visits on request and as arranged with and through Heart and Soul Chaplains.
• Regular, routine ward visits from a handful of PAT dog Heart and Soul volunteers and chaplain
• Individual befriending from a trained volunteer.
• Wednesday Coffee Clubs in Peterborough and Cambridge for gentle conversation, good company, and mutual support.
• Sunday morning reflection with words and music each week at Fulbourn Hospital.
• Sunday ward singing at The Cavell, monthly.
• Coffee friendship group at The Edge Café each Tuesday at 2pm: open to anyone who feels the need of it.
• Personal, pastorally supportive listening for colleagues.
• Personal, pastorally supportive reflective practice and/or debriefing sessions for teams and community partners.
• Organising and hosting learning and networking meetings with community partners.
• Supportive, psychologically safe dialogue with clinical teams
• Training for colleagues in religious, spiritual, and cultural understanding.
• Training for doctors in spiritually sensitive psychiatry.
• Linking with CPFT’s Head to Toe, and Volunteer Services.
• Supporting and helping to develop a creative community group for people on the edge of services.
• Bringing socially-involving activities and celebrations to the new resource centre at Fulbourn hospital.
• Bereavement support group for people whose grief is complicated.
• Inducting and matching new volunteers with a service we provide.
• Organising and hosting placements for theological students in training for church ministry [local community leaders of the future]
• Supporting and supervising chaplains in a neighbouring NHS Trust [NSFT].

 

Appendix 2

Heart and Soul stakeholder conversations

Thank you to the forty people from different areas of the trust and the community who contributed to our recent conversations about Heart and Soul. There were senior CPFT colleagues from clinical and non-clinical services, support services, community groups, and charities representing service users and carers. There were individual activists in health and wellbeing with us, too. Here are some of their reflections, observations, and recommendations about the next three years.

Being human together

"Heart and Soul is a place for colleagues overwhelmed with personal matters in their professional space. The Heart and Soul Team is a centring point, creating space, and bringing calm and presence. Model this way of working".

"Appreciation of the team’s listening skills, openness, and open-mindedness".

"Heart and Soul Lead should meet routinely with the CEO/Chair to support them directly – offline, person to person, ‘like the PM and the Queen".

"Importance of relationships and the importance of everyone being heard and valued was talked about, but a concern was expressed that people at senior levels can’t allow themselves to show their vulnerability – do they have too much to lose"?

"More opportunities for young people to engage with Heart and Soul - what does it/could it mean to them? Could there be a youth forum"?

"Who gives the love? Training for medical doctors – the importance of bringing heart and soul to the clinical discussion; also, spirituality is absent from their medical training – an example was given from reflective practice session with junior doctors “who’s job is it to love our patients? Not our job, it’s a priest’s job” …how can this be addressed when they are working with patients?
It is important to explain the meaning of “love each other” as there is potential for it to be misunderstood. It was suggested that maybe training is needed in managing boundaries and when it is appropriate/not appropriate to use this term. Can Heart and Soul provide input on this"?

Thank you to Clare Southall, Organisational Change Consultant, Executive Coach and Team Facilitator, Interfaith Minister and Founder of Ethneos Consulting Ltd, for volunteering to facilitate the stakeholder conversations with us.