Our 2023 guests

Dr Amarjodh Landa

(Episode 17)

Amarjodh started his medical career as a GP and then ventured into Palliative Care. As a Sikh, he trained officially as a Sikh chaplain which helped him to help from a medical and a spiritual perspective. He works to engage Sikh communities in healthcare initiatives and talking about death, dying and end of life care; whilst teaching healthcare professionals about looking after Sikh patients. 

Jamie Fearn

(Episode 19)

Jamie volunteers as a non-religious pastoral support worker with the chaplaincy team at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in Merseyside which is a specialist mental health trust. Jamie is also a counsellor and Hakomi practitioner/teacher working in private practice and as an Associate Lecturer for the Open University. She is currently studying a doctoral research degree at the University of Chester, where her research focuses on the bodily experience of those recovering from spiritual trauma. You can find out more on her website here and details of her research can be found in our resource section.

Chris Highland

(Episode 20)

Chris, the Friendly Freethinker, was a Protestant minister for 14 years and an Interfaith (collaborative, open-minded, inclusive) chaplain for 25 years. Currently a freethinking Humanist celebrant, he has a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion and an Masters in Divinity. Chris has worked in various community settings including a school for adults with disabilities for six years.   He has taught at various theological institutions and community colleges and now teaches courses on the history of Freethought. As a longtime writer, Chris has written many books, essays and journalistic columns. He lives in South Carolina, USA and is married to a is a Presbyterian Minister.

Sarah Kerr

(Episode 21)

Sarah is a healer and witch with over 25 years of experience of all things magickal. She is a Reiki Master, crystal therapist and meditation teacher who is trauma informed and has worked with hundreds of people as a healer, teacher and magickal practitioner to help them heal and live their best magickal lives. A passionate and vocal advocate for Pagans and Witches across the world, Sarah also spends time speaking out against the discrimination faced by those who follow a Pagan or magickal path through her volunteer role as President of the Pagan Federation.

Julian Raffary

(Episode 22)

Julian's working life has mainly been split between serving as a mental health chaplain and parish ministry. He is Director of Chaplaincy Studies at the St Padarn Institute in Cardiff. As Research Chaplain, he used grounded theory to explore mental service user and carer perceptions of treatment and care and is committed to coproduction;  an approach where people who use services and their carers are understood as having vital contribution in considering, planning, researching, designing, delivering, and evaluating services alongside professionals. In his spare time, he enjoys the company of friends and hillwalking. His more solitary hobbies include photography, DIY, and computer programming.

Sylvia Rothschild

(Episode 24)

Sylvia is a British Reform Rabbi and is currently the Rabbi at Lev Chadash in Milan. Sylvia grew up as a member of the Bradford Reform Synagogue, the third oldest Reform Synagogue in England. After completing a psychology degree at Manchester University she worked in mental health and in a therapeutic community. She was ordained as a rabbi in 1987 and has worked as a Community Rabbi ever since, as well as being a representative on ethics, standards and governance committees.. She is a trained counsellor and executive coach. Sylvia is active in campaigning on a broad range of social issues such as the UK government's response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

Ricarda Witcombe, Sue Miles,

Dipanker Bose, Jagdish Singh

(Episode 25)

Ricarda Witcombe heads up the Chaplaincy team at South Warwickshire University Foundation Trust  and has been a team leader in acute healthcare chaplaincy for ten years.She was originally trained as a nurse and then later became an ordained priest in the Church of England. She is joined in our podcast by Chaplain Sue Miles and her colleagues from the Trust's Faith Group: Jagdish Singh, who is a Clinical Support Worker, and Dr Dipankar Bose who is a Consultant Anaesthetist.

Tim Dixon

(Episode 26)

Tim is Deputy Head of Chaplaincy at Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, working as chaplain on adult mental health and secure inpatient wards in Middlesbrough. He is a former prison chaplain and has served in a number of prisons across the North of England, and is an associate staff member at King’s Church Durham. He recently completed a thesis on the pastoral care of remand prisoners and the role of the prison chaplain, which you can read here: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/14705/

Sue Downie

(Episode 27)

Sue Downie had a successful and varied career in marketing and customer service, including the Institute of Customer Service. For our podcast, she combines this expertise with her patient experience in hospitals over the last ten years, living with health complications. Sue has lived and worked in Denmark and New Zealand and is a great fan of road trips. 

Liz Hamill Howard

(Episode 28)

Recently published in the Journal of Palliative Care (2022), Liz’s research provided some data that palliative-trained chaplains may improve end of life care for patients over 80 years old in the Emergency Department. She believes, in particular, that qualitative studies by chaplains offer another diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) model for transforming healthcare.  Presently, she is a member of the Systems Centered Training and Research Institute, practicing alongside other mental health professionals and chaplaincy educators in group process. Compassion, she says, became more authentic through her education in Vajrayana/Tantric Buddhism. https://linktr.ee/lizhamillhoward

Cheryl  Holmes, OAM

(Episode 29)

Cheryl has had extensive training and professional experience in healthcare, spiritual care and organisational change and management. She began employment as a speech pathologist before moving into spiritual care positions at state and national levels. She was appointed Chief Executive Officer to Spiritual Health Association in 2002. She completed a Masters in 2014 focused on management & leadership and a PhD in 2023 exploring the narratives shaping the future of spiritual care in Australian public hospitals. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her spiritual care roles in the health sector on Australia Day 2015. Cheryl is married to Scott, and they have three sons, two grandchildren, and two very spoilt dogs.

Olivia Jackson

(Episode 30)

Olivia has spent most of her life in and around evangelical contexts, including nearly 15 years working for mission agencies in the UK and overseas. She worked in overseas development and human rights, with a focus on the use of gender-based violence as an expression of the persecution of minorities. Her work has been published in the UK, USA and South Africa and used by the UK Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. After decades of certainties, she has been deconstructing her faith for the past few years and her her latest book '(Un)Certain: A Collective Memoir of Deconstructing Faith' explores this territory. She lives on the side of a windswept hill with two dogs.

Josh Turner

(Episode 32)

Josh came to Spiritual Care rather late in his life, having been a theatre director, actor and comedian for three decades before embarking on an MA in Humanist and Existential Pastoral Care in 2017. Since then he has worked at Bedfordshire Hospitals, Guy’s and St. Thomas’, Woodhill Prison and Hertfordshire Partnerships Foundation Trust where he is currently Spiritual Care lead. He still does the odd voiceover and improvised show, as well as teaching improvised acting to the musical theatre students at the Royal Academy of Music.

Nell Cockell

(Episode 33)

Nell has been working as a healthcare chaplain for about 15 years, mainly at South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust. She has been working with the Children’s Community Nursing Team for several years now, and in March 2020 began a pilot working with children with life-limiting conditions and their families, and with bereaved families. That has become a full-time substantive post, which she shares with her colleague Jackie. As well as visiting families at home – or on walks, or wherever suits them – Nell helps to run bereavement groups and memorial events, and supports staff individually and in groups.

Dr. Daniel Grossoehme

(Episode 34)

Daniel is Senior Research Scientist in the Rebecca D. Considine Research Institute and Haslinger Family Pediatric Palliative Care Center at Akron Children’s Hospital, Ohio. He manages the Palliative Care Center’s research portfolio, which focuses on evaluating value and models of palliative care delivery, including chaplaincy, and bereavement research. He is a member of the American Academy of Palliative Medicine and the Society of Ordained Scientists. Dr Grossoehme is an Episcopal priest, and was a board certified chaplain with 26 years’ clinical experience in pediatrics, primarily in critical care, burn critical care, and mental health. He currently serves as affiliate and supply clergy and in his spare time, he cooks, reads, and plays viola in a community orchestra. 

Lyn Baylis

(Episode 35)

Lyn Baylis is a mother, grandmother and a great grandmother. She has been a Pagan Priestess for 50 years, holding senior roles in a number of Organisations and is now Pagan Spiritual Advisor for Sussex NHS Community Foundation Trust and Founding member and Chair of the Pagan Seminary. Having worked as a Prison Chaplain for over 10 years before becoming a Hospital and Hospice Chaplain, she is determined that, as the popularity of Paganism increases, there should be sufficiently skilled Pagan Chaplains to tend to the spiritual and practical needs of this growing community. She is an advocate for the aging Pagan Community, giving talks and advice on subjects such as Funeral planning on a budget, how to manage Home or Community Funerals, and training End-of-Life Midwives.