A revised pastoral skills training course has been produced by the Association of Christian Counsellors (ACC) and will be released from mid-May.

|TOP|The new initiative aims to make the ACC training resource more user-friendly, and hopes to attract ministers, church leaders wanting to build or support their pastoral team.

The course, which has a step-by-step format for ease of use, is promoted as being simple to use by anyone with a “reasonable knowledge of pastoral care”.

Overall, 22-hours of teaching are included, covering philosophy, need and context for care, as well as practical sessions on skills and processes.

The changes have come following feedback from some of the 90 churches and Christian organisations who have used the course since its initial launch in November 2005. The new resource now includes Power Point presentations also.

|AD|ACC chief executive David Depledge said, “Churches have received the course very enthusiastically – they particularly appreciate being able to mould first class materials to meet their own situations and ways of doing things. And we have listened to feedback from those using the course to make it even more user-friendly.”

Rev. Ron Davis of Earl Shilton Baptist Church, Leicestershire, who has used the course as a training resource at his church, also reported, “We were pleased to be one on the pilot projects for the course, and we led a group of around thirty people from six different churches. Our mixed group of backgrounds and ages all benefited from the course, with its helpful mix of direct input, exercises and discussion. Individuals found the course personally enriching, and it was good for team building. The course is well grounded in Scripture and could be profitably used either to kick-start a pastoral care structure in your church or as in-service training for existing carers.”

The course is now available in various formats and versions that aim to suit a full range of requirements and needs.

The ACC, a registered charity with headquarters in Coventry, is the leading agency representing the voice of Christian counsellors and pastoral carers in the UK. Founded in 1992, it today represents around 2,800 members and 150 affiliate associations.