Pastoral Care Course begins for Down and Dromore
The second of two pastoral care courses provided for the diocese has just begun in St. Donard’s parish halls. The ‘Resourcing Pastoral Carers Course’ enables people to develop their understanding of pastoral care from a Christian perspective and become more effective in relating to and caring for the people and communities around them. It is being facilitated by Jean Pillar, the Pastoral Associate at Carnmoney Presbyterian using a course developed by Pastoral Care UK.
The course is aimed at those who want to learn and develop pastoral relationships with those around them, either informally or as part of developing a pastoral care team for the parish. It involves 10 different sessions over 8 weeks looking at areas such as human need, listening skills, the pastoral care relationship and reflective practice.
The course was arranged by the development Officer, Andrew Brannigan, as part of a number of opportunities being provided through the ‘Life Changing Leadership’ Project in the diocese. Commenting shortly after the course started he stated: ‘We are very excited to be able to offer this course to the diocese to help develop pastoral skills for lay people across a number of parishes. We are also very grateful for the course tutors, Jean Pillar and Lisa Martin for Pastoral Care NI, who have given up valuable time to provide this course for us. The area of pastoral care provision is just one of a number of opportunities we want to develop to help train up lay people for leadership and ministry across the diocese and it is encouraging to see this course full.
For more information on other training opportunities in ‘Life Changing Leadership’ contact Andrew on andrew@downanddromore.org