Anna Chaplaincy: Walking Alongside Older People

Across retirement homes, care settings and ordinary front rooms, Anna Chaplains spend their time listening — to memories, questions, loneliness and faith, and to the long view of a life. It is work shaped more by presence than answers, as Sally Rees explains.

What is an Anna Chaplain

Anna Chaplains serve older people wherever they are - in their homes, care homes, retirement housing, lunch clubs or dementia-friendly cafés.

Anna Chaplaincy is for any older person living in your community. Because it is a chaplaincy, there are no conditions attached. People know they won't be judged and they feel they can trust you and say confidential things that won't go any further.

We might go to someone who is sick, dying or lonely. The emphasis is on focusing on the person and meeting their spiritual needs. We build friendships and beautiful relationships that become equal relationships. If I were explaining it briefly, I'd say: we are here for you on your terms.

An Anna Chaplain is someone who walks alongside you in your later life and hears your story. When we attend and listen, the very fact of being present tells a person that their life is important - their story is important - and that they are loved.

We always start where the person is. Sometimes the ministry stays as companionship and befriending. Sometimes it accompanies people as they put their lives in order in their last years and find peace as they prepare to die. Anna Chaplaincy is a Christian chaplaincy and so if it is desired, and we are invited to share our message of faith and hope, we talk openly about how much God loves and cares for them and offers wholeness and peace.

When people know they are loved and can say anything they want, they begin to trust us. Then they feel free to ask the most amazing questions. With the spirituality of ageing there are many things people need to look back over and reflect on, and we listen. Sometimes we do what's called life-story work, sometimes we just sit and do a jigsaw or watch television. It is giving time (a precious gift) that is completely focused on the individual.

Because we visit people in their own homes, care homes or wherever they live, we meet families and carers as well. It becomes a chaplaincy not only for the individual but for everyone connected with them.

We get to know families at home and carers in care settings. When we take services of worship, family members often come and worship with their relatives. So, it becomes a chaplaincy for all involved in that person's life - we can walk alongside them too.

Why It's Needed Now

We've had pastoral visiting as a Church for a very long time and priests have had a long tradition, in the Anglican Church, of taking communion to people who couldn't come to church. This priestly role is currently supported by Pastoral Visitors or Pastoral Assistants. There is a training programme for Pastoral Assistants provided by St Padarn’s Institute and available for trainers to use in all Wales dioceses so that lay people can become a pastoral assistant and hold a pastoral assistant’s licence. There can also be provision for lay eucharistic assistants to help with home communions.

If we go back to the parish system, when clergy had one or two churches, priests were able to provide religious care to older people in their congregations. Other parishioners were more likely to be known to the priest and he/she was able to take some responsibility for also looking after their spiritual needs. What has happened more recently with the move to Ministry Areas, priests often have responsibility for many churches, and it is unrealistic for priests to be able to cover all their pastoral ministry. Hence lay roles of pastoral assistant and chaplaincy roles have become increasingly important if we are going to serve our ageing church congregations and communities well.

Lay pastoral assistant ministry within pastoral team provision from churches, generally, has been very good at looking after ‘their own’ and very good at providing religious care, yet there hasn't been a real reaching out to people beyond those already connected with church.

What has also changed in the last few decades is that our population demography has shifted. In the early 2010s in the UK we passed the point where there were more people over the age of 65 than under 18, so there's been a change in the spread of the population. We're in a situation we've never been in before - huge numbers of older people, many of whom are isolated.

Before the COVID pandemic people didn't really understand how many older people lived alone or were lonely or in need, but since then there's much better awareness.

Since the 1990s, with the rising numbers of those ageing and living longer, there has also developed a body of research about the spirituality of ageing as people may now live 20 or even 30 years after retiring from employment. Whilst many in the third age remain active for many years, those who reach the fourth age may be dependent, needing help and unable to be active for many years too - with time to reflect and think about the big questions regarding the meaning of life. We now have a huge body of knowledge about spiritual care in ageing that we can draw on to help people as well as offer religious care to those whose religious values and beliefs are a very important part of their understanding of ageing.

The pastoral visiting team and the Anna Chaplaincy team work hand in hand - we emphasise things the pastoral team may not cover.

What Difference It Makes

What older people have taught me is that there are no ordinary people. Every life is extraordinary when people begin to share it.

This generation has lived through major historical changes — wars, changes of monarch, huge social change — and when they talk about their children and their experiences you realise how remarkable their lives are.

Older people matter just as much as anyone else. Early on someone even said to me, "Why would you want a ministry to older people? We've already got older people." But God loves everyone, and older people are just as important as anyone else. We are all made in God's image, each with unique gifts, talents and relationships.

Many are ready to re-engage with faith they once had. This particular generation of older people often went to Sunday school, church or youth groups when they were young. They know Bible stories, verses, prayers, hymns and choruses. Some haven't engaged with faith for decades but, when given the opportunity, they come right back into worship and prayer accepting God back into their lives. They say things like, "I don't know why I stopped going," or "We moved and never went again".

It's a privilege to have somebody share their life with you. Sometimes people share very sad things - sometimes things almost like confession, things they need to tell someone to be at peace.

Many older people now have time to think and reflect, something they didn't have earlier in life. Anna Chaplaincy may appear simply pastoral, but it is also missional. People find peace, come to faith or return to faith.

Another thing I have learnt is that the relationship with God and with each other don’t diminish with age or frailty. There is evidence suggesting the spirit continues to grow even if the body or mind declines. Spiritual care therefore becomes deeply important.

When I first started I thought I was going to bless people. From day one I learned the blessing is mutual. We hope to bless people, but they bless us much more than we imagine. It becomes a sharing of lives; hopes, sadnesses and reflections about the end of life in the presence of God.

The Challenges

Most Anna Chaplains in Wales are serving rural areas.

That brings challenges because people live rurally with very limited transport and can become quite isolated. Some churches in those areas are closing or have very limited services so it’s really important that we can get to them.

Another challenge, and one we need to do much more work in, is dementia care. More and more people are living with dementia and it's a difficult subject to broach. People hide it very well and families sometimes find it hard to accept. So, learning how we care well for people living with dementia is a major area. Sometimes the person living with dementia is mostly unaware of this and may live happily, but for those caring for that person, life can be really hard. So, supporting the family member or carer becomes as important or more important during a visit or encounter.

Alongside Anna Chaplaincy we're also developing bereavement care. Anna Chaplains often walk alongside people to their last days, and then continue caring for those left behind.

We're introducing The Bereavement Journey course in different places. There's also an online national course. Anna Chaplaincy therefore includes pastoral care, support for those living with dementia and often significant bereavement ministry.

Rene's Prayer

I could tell many stories, but this one stayed with me.

Rene lived in a care home and was a woman of great faith. The minister visited her most weeks and she talked about her faith. She was living with dementia. Most of the time she was quite settled, but occasionally she became very distressed.

One day - the care home had long corridors - every time I saw her she was walking quickly up and down the corridor, very distressed, saying, "I've lost my sister. I've lost my sister. Do you know where my sister is?"

Knowing she was a woman of faith, I would say, "I don't know where she is, but God does - shall we pray?" Each time I saw her I put my hands over hers on the Zimmer frame and said a very simple prayer: "Heavenly Father, you know where her sister is, please keep her safe."

Every time I prayed a peace came over her and she became calm, and then she would go, but about 20 minutes later she would be back again, distressed and searching for her sister. This happened several times during the afternoon and each time we prayed she became calm.

When I was leaving – she didn't know it would be the last time before I left the home - she was again coming down the corridor, distressed. I held her hands and prayed again, and then she became calm. She looked straight into my eyes and said, "Now I'm going to pray with you."

I put my hands on the Zimmer frame and she put hers over mine and prayed, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this lady. Please bless her family today. Amen."

What she didn't know was that I had left a very difficult family situation at home. In that moment I realised God had sent Rene for me that day. All that time I thought I was praying for her distress - she didn't know I was distressed - but God used her to speak to me.

Being together in God's presence ministered to me in a way I could never have imagined.

My Own Journey

Around 2005, I was asked to be leader of the pastoral team here, in St Edmund's Church then, before the development of ministry areas. When I was leading this, we did a lot of visiting because that's what the team was set up for, as well as services in care settings. What I realised was that over 90% of the people we visited were elderly, housebound, poorly people who actually couldn't come out.

My eyes were really opened to the numbers of older people who were isolated for emotional or physical reasons and in need of care and company.

Then, as I was coming up to retirement from nursing – after a nursing career of 37 years - I knew God had something else for me. I applied to do the degree in chaplaincy studies at what was then St Michael's College to explore what this might be, thinking it might be Hospital Chaplaincy. Because it's a course where you have to reflect on your practice, I was given a placement at my local hospital. I went every Tuesday evening to the stroke ward.

During the course, I had to reflect on practice, and almost every time I had a reflective assignment, I reflected on pastoral care in the community. I quite enjoyed the hospital chaplaincy, but it became very clear to me, and to my supervisor, that my calling was to older people. That was unusual at that time, because distinctive ministry to older people wasn't really a particular thing.

But it was absolutely clear to him and to me that this was my calling, and I've been very grateful ever since for that assurance of knowing what God called me to. The calling became very strong.

I contacted Debbie Thrower, who at that time was pioneering the ministry of Anna Chaplaincy and I became part of a network of people, just a handful at the beginning across England and Wales, who had this particular calling to serve older people.

Following a discernment process I was ordained as a Deacon in 2014, with a specific role to develop older people’s ministry in the community across the St Catwg’s Ministry Area. Some Anna Chaplains are ordained but most are in lay ministry and it’s the calling to, and pastoral heart for, older people that is more important than anything else to enable this chaplaincy.

Anna Chaplaincy is now established as part of the Bible Reading Fellowship Ministries, and we now have a new Head of Ministry at the Bible Reading Fellowship – Debbie Ducille and Julia Burton-Jones are the Training Officers. There are now more than four hundred and fifty Anna Chaplains across the UK and six hundred people have undertaken the ‘Introduction to Anna Chaplaincy Training Course’.

God has led me throughout my journey to Anna Chaplaincy and as I look back over my life I can see how God was preparing me for this.

When I was 16 and got my place to go nursing, somebody asked me why I wanted to be a nurse. I've been reminded of this recently. I said, "I want to be near people who are sick and those who are dying." I think that's absolutely remarkable, because I hadn't really remembered saying it. But looking back over my life I can see that all of that nursing experience was giving me the skills, knowledge and gifts that I needed to be an Anna Chaplain in ministry to older people.

I've now retired from non-stipendiary ministry and we now have three Anna Chaplains in our Ministry Area serving different communities within it. I continue with my calling to raise awareness of Anna Chaplaincy. I'm working as a freelance trainer for Anna Chaplaincy (national) with Bible Reading Fellowship Ministries, helping to write training materials and training others to undertake ministry. I'm an online and face-to-face trainer, I take conferences and workshops on Anna Chaplaincy when invited, and I accept speaking engagements wherever I can to raise as much awareness as possible about Anna Chaplaincy.

I've also had the privilege of being a Bishop's Officer for Older People's Ministry here raising awareness across Swansea and Brecon and across Wales, and have been the Anna Chaplaincy Lead for Wales for the last few years.

More information

For more information please contact Sally Rees

The Anna Chaplaincy website is full of information http://www.annachaplaincy.org.uk. There is a blog that you can subscribe to where Anna Chaplains share news and experience; information on training for Anna Chaplaincy; and a resources section where there are some free downloadable resources that support different aspects of Anna Chaplaincy ministry. It’s an excellent website.

Information to support those who are grieving can be found at https://www.ataloss.org

Information on the Bereavement Journey can be found at https://www.thebereavementjourney.org