Faith Boxes: A Training Activity for Educators and Human Service Professionals

Abstract

The issues of faith and religion are frequently avoided by instructors in training institutes for fear of inciting divisive conversations in the context of the classroom. Within secular training institutes, however, there is a growing momentum to incorporate an understanding of the spiritual aspects of individuals, families, and communities into the training of educators and helping professionals as they work toward a more holistic and biopsychosocial approach to care (Becker, 2009). Key to this is an intentional experience for the students/learners to identify their own attitudes and biases concerning religion/spirituality in order to avoid imposing their values, expectations, and beliefs on future clients (Post & Wade, 2009). This work presents an activity being used within clinical and educational training programs to give students and affective educational experience designed to both generate insight and build skills in working effectively with the faith and value systems of others.

KEYWORDS:

• Faith
• religion
• spirituality
• training
• educators
• therapists