Pastoral Care Services

Pastoral Care Services

Chaplains offer spiritual, emotional, and religious support 24 hours per day, seven days per week to patients, families, and staff. Our clinically trained staff are members of the interdisciplinary team who provide comfort, encouragement, and support. They can help you find the spiritual strength you need to get through times when you may feel helpless, confused, or lonely.

What Do Chaplains Do?

• Provide emotional and spiritual support.
• Support patients through care planning and decision making.
• Help patients to process profound spiritual issues such as suffering, loss, guilt, trust, hope, etc.
• Offer prayer, blessings, anointings, baptisms, religious sacraments, and rituals.
• Serve as liaison with community clergy & faith communities. Provide end-of-life support, grief, and bereavement care

We serve all patients regardless of gender, religion (faith or no faith), age, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, or legal status.

Our chaplains serve all faith traditions and can help patients and their families access the resources they need to carry out their own spiritual or religious traditions. If desired, we can assist in contacting your religious/spiritual community. Devotional materials, sacraments, priest visits, and other resources may be made available upon request.

You can request a chaplain by contacting Pastoral Care at 312.996.0296 at any time. Patients can also ask any member of their medical team to request a chaplain visit.

Advance Directives

UI Health employs two Advanced Directive Specialists, chaplains who are trained in having conversations about Advanced Care Planning and in completing the Advanced Directive forms.  These Specialists can be called upon to assist patients, families and even staff with these important discussions.  Any member of the Pastoral Care Team can also assist with completing Advanced Directives, but the Specialists are available for consults and referrals throughout the day.

Advance Directives are documents that let others know your wishes about the type of care you would like to receive. They will only be used if you become unconscious or too ill to communicate. 

If you have an advance directive, please bring a copy with you at the time of your clinic visit or hospital admittance. If you do not have an advance directive and wish to create one, you can contact an Advance Directive Specialist at 312.355.9934 or Health Social Work at 312.996.0293. Click here for more information on Advance Directives. 

Clinical Pastoral Education

The UI Health Clinical Pastoral Education Program is designed to train graduate-level (and equivalent) individuals who are interested in pursuing a career in chaplaincy by offering a high-quality, experiential educational process.  For more information, download our brochure.

Meditation Room

An area for prayer and meditation is located in the hospital (room 1140) on the first floor near the visitor elevators. It is open 24 hours per day, seven days per week. In the meditation room, a prayer book is available to write prayer requests. Chaplains will pray for these needs. Free spiritual resources are also available.

Spirituality Groups

We offer weekday and weekend spirituality groups for psychiatric patients that focus on spiritual beliefs and values. These groups are held on the unit and are offered for both youth and adult patients.