Pastoral Care Services

Consultation and workshops are available to help meetings, Friends’ organizations, and their committees develop a creative, caring response to any issue relating to human relationships and family dynamics.

Consultation is usually provided by a member of the Friends Counseling Service who can provide a sounding board for your ideas, meet with you in person or over the phone to explore concerns, or provide an outside perspective as you develop plans to meet a challenge in relation to pastoral care. Workshops are often provided by those counselors or other experienced Friends.

For Meetings & Their Committees:

Care and Counsel provides workshops — on a wide variety of topics and of varying lengths — to meetings and their committees. We can develop workshops to fit your specfic needs. Those designed for particular committees are generally skill-building workshops related to aspects of pastoral care.

Topics have included:

· strengthening the meeting as a caring community;

· raising children in a violent world;

· dealing with anger and conflict;

· using the clearness process for marriage, membership, and other issues;

· facing separation and divorce;

· living with death and dying;

· enhancing communication and creative listening;

· handling pastoral care.

For Individuals:

From time to time Care and Counsel conducts workshops or conferences which are open to Friends generally, such as a series of “overseers conferences” and a large conference on “circles of support.”

Such workshops can be scheduled to be part of the gathering of a quarterly meeting or even a monthly meeting retreat. We encourage meetings to consider letting us help you plan such an event.

To arrange for a workshop or consultation, please call Steve Gulick at 215-241-7068 or email <mailto:steveg@pym.org>.