Spiritual Care Week: Meet Teash Taylor, Spiritual Care Coordinator

Meet Teash Taylor, Spiritual Care Coordinator at Baptcare Karana Residential Aged Care community. As part of Spiritual Care Week, we are delighted to shine a light on Teash as one of the amazing staff members who make up the spiritual care team at Baptcare!

Teash talked about her work as a Spiritual Care Coordinator, how much residents love the outfits that Dot the greyhound wears when she visits and her newly found passion for cross stitch. Read more below.

What is your current role at Baptcare and what does a typical day look like?

I’m the Spiritual Care Coordinator at Baptcare Karana Community and I’ve been here for about five months.

There isn’t really a typical day in my role, every day brings something different.

I’m all about person-centred care and residents’ needs don’t come up at 10am every day for a meeting! They can’t really be scheduled and can arise at any time. My role involves a lot of one-on-one time with residents. I lead a weekly service for those who practice the Christian faith and conduct cultural and spiritual assessments to support the care of all residents.

One of the most important parts of my role is being present to the needs of residents, especially during times of transition, such as the start of their journey into residential care and then the end of that journey. The beginning transition is huge for residents, it is such a big change to their lives. I spend time supporting residents and their families through this time, getting to know them and helping them ease into the change and welcoming them to their new home.

I assist them to feel cared for, known and seen as they make Karana their new home.

Grief and loss are ongoing themes for residents in aged care. As Spiritual Care coordinators, we spend a lot of time being a support for residents, in whatever way they need. This is especially important towards the end of their time or in palliative care.

What do you like about your role?

I love the people at Karana. To be a part of residents’ lives and to get to know them is one of the best parts of my role. The staff are great too! With spiritual care, there is never enough time in the day. There is a lot of one-on-one time with people and the time I have with residents varies depending on who they are, what they like and what they are passionate about.

I really enjoy assisting them to connect to things they like, their passions and what gives them meaning.

What do you like about bringing Dot (the greyhound) to Karana to visit? Does she like it too?

Dot the rescue greyhound really likes to visit Karana as she enjoys visiting the residents and I enjoy seeing their interaction.

For a lot of residents, their pets are one of the things they miss most when they move into residential aged care.

Luckily for the Karana residents, Mona the cat is the resident pet and is loved by all (Editor’s note. she was taking a nap on the chair in Teash’s office during this interview!), but they enjoy visits with Dot, as well.

Dot is really well suited to her visiting role at Karana. She’s gentle, sweet, and wheelchair height for accessible for easy cuddles and pats. There are some residents who don’t like dogs but they love commenting on all of Dot’s different outfits!

Touch is an important part of pet visits like Dot’s – pet or animal cuddles are something special! Animals can bring out things in the residents that people may not necessarily be able to.

Dot doesn’t do as many visits as she used to as she is also ageing. I’m guided by Dot as to how many residents she can visit in a day.

Did you always want to work in the spiritual care space? What other roles have you had throughout your career?

When I was 16, I wanted to work in aged care in diversional therapy or lifestyle coordination.

During high school I completed a VET course in Community Services and part of that course was to undertake 160 hours of voluntary placement in aged care. I enjoyed this experience although it was very different to aged care today.

I also completed a Bachelor of Arts in Gender Studies and Anthropology and then completed a Master of Theological Studies.

I was a Pastor for four years at a Baptist church and this was wonderful experience for my current role in spiritual care. One of the gifts of spiritual care or chaplaincy is that – with boundaries in place – you are able to focus on spiritual care and the truly joyful work you can do with the residents.

Spiritual Care Week is this week, and the theme is ‘Spiritual care providers: beyond religious roles.’ What would you like to share to celebrate spiritual care work and the many hats that spiritual care workers wear.

One of the great things about spiritual care is that there’s no one way to do it. For the people we have the privilege to know and care for, spiritual care may look different for each one.

For some, spiritual care is playing scrabble affirming their teaching gifts as they try and explain how to do cryptic crosswords to me. For others it is singing a nursery rhyme, holding hands, reciting a psalm or a prayer or patting Dot the dog. Recently I used google earth to help a resident find where they used to live and talk about their home growing up. Spiritual Care is all about connecting to people and the things that give them meaning, purpose and joy so it never looks the same! It can be wonderfully creative as people’s needs are so wonderful and diverse.

The hats that Spiritual Care Coordinators wear can be infinite and ways to connect are endless which is one of the most wonderful parts of the role.

Can you tell me two surprising things about yourself?

I do cross stitch and embroidery. I find it calming and meditative. There is something really satisfying about cross stitch. It’s like a paint by numbers except with thread, not to mention it is a great conversation starter and talking point with residents who may have a shared hobby.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a tennis coach. I was self-aware enough to know that I couldn’t make it as a professional player but as a coach I thought I would still get to play tennis every day!

I like teaching and helping people, so I thought this would be the perfect job.

Do you have a favourite saying or motto that you use in life?

One of the sayings I think about and apply to life is “What is the loving thing to do?”

I also think about dignity quite a lot, particularly in my role. There is a saying from John Perkins “We can’t bestow dignity; we can only affirm it.” I think this rings true and is particularly helpful in my work in the aged care space.

What are two things on your bucket list?

I’ve done quite a few things on my bucket list already. I’ve been skydiving, paragliding and I’m getting married next year, which is another bucket list thing to do I guess. I would love to do more travel too. Anywhere I visit I find interesting and there is always something to see and learn. Our honeymoon is going to be in Vietnam which is exciting!

Was there anything else you’d like to share with me today?

What spiritual carers do can be a mystery to people. But it doesn’t need to be. It is good to remind people that we are here for everyone, in whatever capacity and we are not here to impose anything on anyone. We seek to support and empower people as they connect to what they value most and what gives them purpose in life, whatever that may look like for them.