
Someone Cares - Ready to Replicate!
Today's post is brought to you by Claudine Roberts (Freedom Church, Liverpool)
A few weeks back, Freedom Church Liverpool celebrated a victory for Someone Cares, our social action project. Partnering with the Spiritual Care Team at Alder Hey Hospital, we provide practical help and volunteers who visit patients and families on the wards.
Jenni Calcraft, Someone Cares project lead, presented at the Cinnamon Network Incubator Final and secured our spot on the Cinnamon Network’s Incubator Programme. We also received a generous development grant to assist other churches in starting a Someone Cares project in their communities!
It is such a privilege to volunteer for Someone Cares, visiting Alder Hey to support the chaplains, chat to patients and their families and offer to pray. A friend of mine from my previous church volunteers as a hospital chaplain elsewhere, but I’ve never seen a church partnering with a hospital chaplaincy team like this before, to provide volunteers and practical support, and essentially all the gifts and skills of the whole church.
Everyone at Freedom Church gets involved in some way. We’ve got a lady in her eighties who irons the donated pyjamas, a talented artist who helps with flyers and other resources, and everyone prays regularly when we share updates at our monthly prayer meetings or on Sunday mornings. We’ve even been able to connect some families at the hospital with our Freedom CMA Debt Advice service and have had families with little ones very ill in Intensive Care join us on a Sunday morning for worship and prayer.
Do you have a local hospital that might benefit from such a partnership?
With over 1000 hospitals in the UK, most churches will already have some links with a hospital in their local area, whether that’s through church members receiving treatment or perhaps working there. We would love to see other churches reaching out to the chaplains in their local hospitals, offering volunteers and practical support and supplies, such as pyjamas and toiletries. We’re looking to work with a number of churches over the next two years to establish new Someone Cares projects. Our vision is to see churches all over the UK partnering with their local hospital chaplaincy teams and we’re at such an exciting stage in the Someone Cares story.
Could your church run a Someone Cares project?
If you’re starting to think about whether your church could start a Someone Cares project where you are, here are some practical steps you can take to work out what God is calling you to do:
1. First, pray!
What is God saying? There are many good ways we can serve our local communities and reach out to help those in need, but no church can do everything. Is this for you? Only God can answer that question.
2. Do some research
Do you have links with a local hospital already? Is there someone in the church who works there, who you might be able to speak to? Find out who the chaplain is, what their faith background is and whether they already have volunteers going in. It’s helpful to find all this out before initiating a conversation with the hospital, if you can.
3. Get in touch
At this point we’d love to hear from you so that we can support you through the next steps and potentially help you establish a Someone Cares project of your own. You can register your interest at someonecares@freedomchurchliverpool.co.uk and we can have an informal chat with no commitment.
What support would you receive as a Someone Cares project?
Someone Cares has brought God’s love, peace and hope into the lives of so many families at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. We have become an integral and valued part of the Spiritual Care Team, but reaching this point has involved a lot of steps and learning along the way! Having pioneered this new project, our aim is to provide your church with everything you need to easily and effectively start and run a project into your own local hospital.
Here are some of the ways in which we would support your Someone Cares project:
Identifying the people - You’ll need a project lead and a couple of volunteers to get things off the ground. We usually recommend visiting the hospital in pairs to make conversation easier. We can help you think about the type of people who work well in this role and enjoy it. I usually visit Alder Hey Children’s Hospital with Jenni – we both have children with a history of medical conditions and hospital visits, so that can make it easier for us to chat to parents going through that with their children. Relevant past experience isn’t always necessary, but it can certainly be helpful.
Starting the conversation - We can support you in contacting the chaplain at your local hospital to ask how you can support their work. We can help you put together a proposal and provide information about Someone Cares for the chaplains.
Training and volunteer support -We will provide initial training for your volunteers, plus advice and ongoing support as pastoral visiting is incredibly rewarding but can come with a personal emotional cost.
Practical pastoral resources - We have created various resources that will be available to you, from toiletry packs to worship playlists.
Logistics - As you set up your project we will help you with the time-consuming ‘behind the scenes’ aspects such as data collection systems, graphics templates, social media set-up and web page content so that you can focus your own efforts on meeting needs and showing God’s love to individuals.
As a pilot project, your church would have the opportunity to be part of the next step of the Someone Cares journey. As well as receiving support, you would also be part of shaping what support future projects receive. We would love to have you be a part of what God is doing through Someone Cares!
When I first volunteered for Someone Cares, the process began with a DBS check and then the formal Alder Hey Hospital volunteer training, which included basic safeguarding training. Within a few months I was able to walk onto the wards in an official hospital t-shirt and chat to patients and their families. I’ve lent a listening ear to families awaiting a transplant, families adjusting to life-changing circumstances and families exploring deep questions of faith.
There are so many families and individuals in hospitals all over the UK who could benefit from a friendly face and a chat.
Will your church show them that Someone Cares?
Visit Someone Cares — Freedom Church Liverpool for more information, or email someonecares@freedomchurchliverpool.co.uk
Written by Claudine Roberts for the Jubilee+ blog