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A new internship has been established by the Anglican diocese of Wellington to improve awareness and skill in mental health chaplaincy in their diocese.
Finding funding for the internship was a challenge. “It’s been a ten-year journey,” the lead chaplain for Capital and Coast District Health Board, Reverend Canon Kath Maclean told Movement, the diocesan news site.
“It’s hard to find people who want to work in mental health, so we decided we needed to train our own”.
The Wellington Hospital Chaplaincy Trust agreed to fund the internship for three years after Kath asked to present her ideas to them.
“They’ve supported our dream financially,” she says, allowing the service to pay an intern for ten hours per week.
She said the internship is designed to operate for one-year terms.
Interns will then able to integrate their skills into their ministry, wherever that might be.
The first intern is Reverend Cath Growcott, the priest in charge is the parish of Porirua.
She began at the beginning of this year.
“This is a great link between the hospital and the parish,” Cath says, and “it will give me more experience dealing with mental illness, and develop my knowledge and awareness”.
Cath has begun her internship working in the youth section, serving those with mental illnesses and those who are in the forensic system – judged not guilty of crimes by reason of insanity.
She will also spend time in the psycho-geriatric section and with people who live with intellectual disabilities.
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