Workshops

Susan Schudt MS, MA
Internal Family Systems Practitioner, Desires of Your Heart IFS Pastoral and Spiritual Coaching

April Ross MA, BCC
Staff Chaplain, Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center

Certification Competencies:  PPS3, ITP2, ITP1, PIC2, OL4.1

This workshop focuses on enhancing cultural competency through incorporating Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Ignatian Spirituality (IS) as a compassionate approach of embracing complexity without losing our sense of self. Examples of cultural differences for this workshop are gender, health, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, class, and religion.

The IFS model offers chaplains a powerful framework for enhancing cultural competence through self-awareness and addressing internal biases, and helps ensure that our best intentions align more closely with our impact in interpersonal interactions. Personal practice of IFS allows chaplains to identify and understand their "parts"- internal voices or perspectives, feelings or judgements, that have been shaped by personal history and culture. By welcoming these “parts” with compassion and curiosity in themselves, chaplains can cultivate a more open-hearted approach to ministry.

Objectives:

1. Increased awareness of one’s own cultural lens as a gift for increased cultural competency.
2. Increased awareness of positional power differentials between ministers and clients.
3. Connection with Self and one’s thoughts and feelings, specifically in terms of cultural differences and biases, through the practice of Internal Family Systems.
4. Connection with God and an applicable Saint as conversation as “one friend speaks to another” (Ignatian spirituality).