Name: FCG Health and Social Care Chaplains Study Day
Start: 2026-06-16T10:30:00+01:00
End: 2026-06-16T16:30:00+01:00
Location: Cleaves Conference Centre

FCG Health and Social Care Chaplains Study Day: Cultivating a Childlike Curiosity
About this Event

This study day, put on for Free Churches Group chaplains but open to all, will feature input from Linda Dunbar and Graham Adams. Linda will provide training around Values Based Reflective Practice, and the Connect, Reflect, Respond reflective practice and/or supervision model. Graham will offer insights from his book God the Child: Small, Weak and Curious Subversions exploring the potential implications for chaplaincy of 'God as Child': How might this metaphor open up different possibilities for us? How might it also cause some disruption and difficulty? In particular, are there insights to be gained from thinking of God as small, as weak and as curious? Could this speak into our care-giving but also to us as childlike chaplains? Together, through the day, Graham and Linda will encourage us to explore how we might cultivate a childlike curiosity as chaplains.

Linda is the founding Director of LSShetland, Practice Educator for NHS Scotland Spiritual Care, the NHS Scotland National Lead for Values Based Reflective Practice, registered Healthcare Chaplain and has recently been appointed as the academic lead director for the UKBHC. Linda devises and delivers on-line and in-person training on supervision, reflective practice and listening skills. Linda has a doctorate in Practical Theology and a PGDip in Pastoral Supervision with the Institute of Pastoral Supervision and Reflective Practice. She is passionate about honouring the inner wisdom inherent within each person and providing a safe, facilitative space and time for people to connect with their own insight.

Graham is Tutor in Mission Studies, World Christianity and Religious Diversity, and programme lead for the postgraduate degrees (n both theology and chaplaincy studies), at Luther King Theological College, Manchester. He also teaches for the Congregational Institute for Practical Theology. He is the author of Holy Anarchy: Dismantling domination, Embodying community, Loving strangeness (SCM, 2022) and God the Child: small, weak and curious subversions (SCM, 2024) and the forthcoming The Anarchic Spirit: Interpreting the Bible and the World in troubled times (SCM, 2026). Before teaching full-time, he was in Congregational ministry in Manchester.