Hello NIBIC Members,
This weekend marks the annual commemoration of Labor Day, which honors the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, Laws and well-being of the country. I am attaching a Prayer for Workers from the Interfaith Worker Justice website for your reflection and use with those you serve. You can find a large number of other resources on their website, www.iwj.org/resources.
Last week Terry Bard, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, called to ask NIBIC’s permission to use material from our website for a book soon to be published called “Body and Soul”, which chronicles the development over the years of the pastoral care movement. The author had contacted me several years ago, and I had tried to convey to her how the workplace chaplaincy movement has evolved and sent her additional materials that I had published. It will be interesting to see how we are portrayed in the book. When it comes out I hope to set you know.
Terry Bard and Doug Kellough, President of the Journal’s Board of Managers has also contacted us to tell us about the global reach now that the Journal has through its partnership with SAGE publications, reaching pastoral care practitioners, students and institutions in many countries around the world. He also asked our help in encouraging the institutions with which we are associated to take out subscriptions, and the Journal has developed an incentive discount program. If you are interested, please contact the Journal at www.jpcp.org.
Alan Harris, a NIBIC board member and who has represented us on the Journal’s Board of Managers, has let me know that due to his increasing responsibilities in his new ministry endeavor and finishing up his LPC, he needs to retire from the Board. We need a new person to step up and be our representative. I had been our rep for 8 years and Dave Plummer after me, then Alan Harris. Please consider taking on this important role. In recent years, the board has met “virtually”, by phone and emails. This November the Board will be meeting in Toronto for an Annual Meeting, starting at 9 a.m. on Monday, November 12 and ending late afternoon November 13th. All expenses will be paid! So this is a great incentive for one of you to come on board. I have the expense form and information email from John Carr, the Business Office Manager. Let me know, ASAP, and I will forward it to you.
Some NIBIC folks are still having trouble getting into the members’ section of our website and accessing the Journal. If you haven’t already signed up, you need to go to the homepage, and in the upper right corner there is a log in sign up note. Click onto the sign up link. You will use your email address as your log in name, then create a password. You will be led to several information screens. If you don’t succeed, then contact Greg Edwards, our web keeper, and get his assistance: gebedwards@gmail.com 409-550-3056. Some of the publication and news links on the webpage are out of date, and Greg assures me that he will update the material.
A bit of news from Worklife Institute: We were awarded all five grants we applied for to support our veterans and family worklife reintegration programs. We have also added a new program: Military Caregivers Empowerment and Professional Development Project. There are about 5.5 million military caregivers in the U.S. now, 1.1 of them caring for Post 9/11 wounded veterans. 66% of caregivers are women, 25% of them spouses, with the rest other family members, friends and neighbors, and 75% of these caregivers want and need to be in the workplace. With the time required and unpredictability of the caregiving role, many experience jeopardy to their careers or loss of jobs altogether. Our program is helping them link to support resources, provide EAP-type counseling and strategies to manage their worklife while also successfully navigating their caregiving.
I will be heading to Atlanta this coming week for the annual America’s Warrior Partnership’s Community Integration Symposium. We will again have an information booth there and network with over a hundred other service provider organizations.
Wishing you a good Labor Day observance and good start to your Fall time involvements.
Diana C. Dale, D.Min., Ph.D.
Executive Director, NIBIC