Graduate Diploma in Pastoral Care

What this course is about

The Graduate Diploma in Pastoral Care provides students with the opportunity and skills for reflective and critical engagement in the conversation between the texts of human experience, contemporary culture, ministry or service or wider societal context, and Christian scriptures and tradition. The purpose of this engagement is to encourage the development of relevant, flexible strategies for effective pastoral mission and practice in partnership with all those who seek to serve the world through individual or systemic practice.

Course learning outcomes

Graduates of the Graduate Diploma in Pastoral Care:

• have knowledge of sources, terms, and concepts required for theological engagement and articulate the nature of practical theology as a method of biblical and theological inquiry;
• apply  their own experience and practice (personal or professional) to social and behavioral sciences and/or cultural studies and offer integration of these with the Christian tradition;
• have skills to explore issues of Christian identity, personal vocation, and self-understanding through the methods and practices of theological reflection and dialogical engagement with their ministry and mission context;
• apply advanced pastoral helping skills with a developed capacity to engage in the processes of theological reflection.