VIDEO BLASTS
November, 2014
Hello Members, and a special welcome to those members for whom this video is one of the only connections they have with our profession.
This month marked Remembrance Day in our country, and this year it seemed more significant given the events in the latter part of October in which we experienced the death of two of our Armed Force personnel, on Canadian soil.
On October 20th Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent was killed in a targeted hit and run accident, and on October 22nd Corporal Nathan Cirillo, was shot while standing guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier at the War Memorial in Ottawa. This event also involved the shooting in the Parliament Buildings, the symbol of our democracy and freedom.
As these events unfolded, my thoughts went to our members who have and continue to serve as chaplains in the Armed Forces. No doubt many of them were involved in providing spiritual care the the friends and colleagues of Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo.
I was also sensitive to the fact that other members may have been providing support to the families and loved ones of Martin Rouleau and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, in their very private, isolated and disenfranchised grief.
As I think about the fact that as professionals we often journey with people, providing spiritual care, regardless of right and wrong, victim or perpetrator, privileged or underprivileged, I am struck by both the mystery and sacredness of our work. There is a profound sacredness as we bear witness to another’s journey,and just as profound mystery in the space that is created between us.
In my message in the Communique I mentioned Kim Cameron’s book Positive Leadership, and I would like to draw upon his writings again in reference to communication. He speaks of descriptive statements as opposed to evaluative statements in identifying and resolving problems.
Evaluative statements make a judgment or place a label on other individuals or on their behavior, such as; “You are wrong,” “You are incompetent,” “This is your fault”. I know when I have been the recipient of evaluative statements I can easily become defensive because I feel attacked, devalued, or shamed.
Descriptive statements, on the other hand, provide an objective description of the situation, event, or behaviour. Impressions, assumptions, or conclusions about the motives of another person are avoided. Rather than projecting onto another person the cause of the problem, descriptive statements focus on my personal reaction to the situation.
This is something that, as a teaching supervisor, I am aware, although don’t necessarily always practice. I know that students are more receptive when I don’t so much evaluate their assessments, interventions, reactions, and responses; but rather describe what I see and how I feel about it.
I’m speaking about this today because it is part of the Board’s commitment to encouraging a culture of respect, openness and understanding in our communications with one another. This is even more important when it comes to issues that we are impassioned about: it is more difficult to remain descriptive and aware of our feelings about the issue.
We have a skill set, our self-awareness; that can be supportive of this approach and actually make it second nature when we take the time to reflect as we communicate with one another.
To pick up on Mary Holman’s PPC report in the Communique, we decided that we would move forward with our discussions regarding certification and its purpose and value as well as the challenges in becoming certified; as well as the question of nomenclature. We’re going to do this by engaging your input through surveys. We’re trying to be sensitive to the fact that many of us suffer from survey fatigue, so we’re going to spread them out over the next few months.
There is a survey that has been completed by the Board, Commissions and Committees in the past year regarding nomenclature, so we’re going to send this out to all our membership in the next few weeks. The survey regarding the issue of certification will be sent out early in the new year.
The results of both these surveys will provide us with content to inform the discussions and conversations we will be having as part of our AGM this coming year on the topics of certification and nomenclature.
That’s it for this month, thank you for listening, and talk to you next month.