Kenneth Dale on a unique pastoral care program

No Shortage of Chaplains Here!

Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, California, has no shortage of chaplains. What is our secret for having no shortage of chaplains here? The secret lies in our pool of over 100 clergy from which to draw! Our retirement community is unique in that residents must have spent at least 20 years in active professional work in the church is order to be eligible for admission.

We are a three-level community with independent, assisted and full nursing care facilities all on the same campus. Chaplains serve the full nursing care facility which we call the Health Services Center. This Center has 60 beds, half of which are reserved for Pilgrims (the name we give ourselves as residents here) and half of which are open for the wider community of Claremont. In our pastoral care for the residents, no distinction is made between Pilgrims and patients from outside Pilgrim Place.

Since we have so many Pilgrims who have had long experience in calling on and caring for the elderly through their pastoral work, it is not hard to find persons to serve as chaplains in the Health Services Center. Aren’t we blessed! We have a fairly well structured system for utilizing this clergy-power in a way that gives the best service to the residents of the Health Services Center and is least burdensome to the chaplains.

A Coordinator of Chaplaincy Services – a volunteer, as all the other chaplains are – recruits 12 different chaplains each year, both men and women, not necessarily ordained. These 12 serve in teams of two, each team serving for a two-month period. This system allows scheduling flexibility within the team, which is necessary inasmuch as Pilgrims volunteer in many community activities and travel a great deal, so they don’t like to be confined to a daily schedule for a long period of time. The turnover in chaplains, although it has the disadvantage of lacking continuity in relationships, seems to be generally appreciated by the Center residents also. They get to know a diversity of men and women from the Pilgrim Place campus, and experience various types of pastoral care.

As for services provided by the chaplains, when on duty we spend at least two hours each day, seven days a week, in the Health Services Center. There is no paper work or administrative responsibility, so our entire time is focused on personal care. Although some residents are unable to carry on meaningful conversation, many are able to converse and respond gratefully to the time and attention the chaplains can pay them. The focus is always on the resident’s needs, not on formal procedures. We read Scripture and pray when the resident appears to desire that, not as a routine.

In addition to calling on residents, chaplains plan Sunday worship services. Here again we are blessed with an ample pool of ministers on whom we can call for leadership and preaching. The worship services are limited to 30 minutes, and always include special music. We are also blessed with many musicians within the Pilgrim community.

When death draws near for a patient, the chaplains are on call 24 hours a day and accompany the patient on his/her journey to the “next level.” If the patient lingers for a long time, we have a list of Pilgrims who volunteer to sit by dying patients during their last hours. When a Pilgrim dies, the chaplain on duty informs all the other Pilgrims in the Health Services Center of that death.

We are proud of the high quality of care at our Health Services Center and believe that the chaplaincy program is one significant factor in that quality care.