Our 2024 guests

Chantal Meystre

(Episode 37)

Dr Chantal Meystre: Chantal is Director of The Omega Course which delivers experiential education to pre-morbid people in the community. This includes communications skills by role play, in preparation to support family, friends and neighbours through dying, death, and bereavement. The course was conceived and planned in 2015, and began in 2016, in response to a request for help from a group of friends. It became a registered charity in 2019. Its aim is to provide a safe atmosphere in which to discuss dying and death to combat the extant taboo. 

Daniel Nuzum

with Paula Trainor and Kate Cornwell 

(Episode 38 - Part 1)

Daniel explains how Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is an established learning programme for chaplains and pastoral carers in Ireland where he works. He has been involved in bringing the programme over to England with a pilot at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and is joined by two students, Paula Trainor and Kate Cornwell, who share some of their learning experience.  We hope that this episode will be followed up with  another where students share the wisdoms and insights they have gained through CPE.

Leon Dundas

(Episode 39)

Leon is a prison chaplain, consciously striving for intercultural fluency as he 'ministers' to a range of beliefs and worldviews. Born in Guyana, he studied and worked in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, USA and UK. He is involved in community based leadership in church networks, restorative justice and mediation as well as Health and Palliative Care Chaplaincy. His career reflects a commitment to multiculturalism, religious pluralism/inter-faith dialogue and serving (with) those who live on the margins of power.

Dr James Parker

(Episode 40)

James is an experienced Consultant Clinical Psychologist, having worked in cancer and palliative care in the NHS and hospices for 20 years. James’s role involves not only working with cancer and palliative care patients and their families but also supporting staff who work in this field. James uses Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) in much of his clinical work, and enjoys training and supervising MDT colleagues, qualified psychologists and those in training. James is chair of the West Midlands Cancer Network Psychosocial Expert Advisory Group and is involved in improving psycho-oncology services across the West Mids. region.

Terri O'Sullivan

(Episode 41)

Terri O'Sullivan is the Apostate Services Development Officer for Faith to Faithless, a service of Humanists UK which supports people who have left high-control religious groups. She was raised as a Jehovah's Witness which she left at the age of 21 resulting in her becoming homeless for a short while. Terri went on to set up a support group for former Jehovah's Witnesses in 2007 called XJW Friends, and joined the leadership team of Faith to Faithless in 2015. She completed her degree in social psychology at the University of Kent and conducted research into the long-term effects of ostracism from a religious community. She continued this line of research at Tilburg University in the Netherlands in her master's degree and studied the relationship between religious fundamentalism and ostracism.  

Danielle Buhuro

(Episode 42)

Rev. Dr. Danielle J. Buhuro is Executive Director and CPE Supervisor of Sankofa CPE Center, LLC, which offers innovative online Clinical Pastoral Education programming along with unique social justice-oriented clinical work settings and prepares clergy chaplains for board certification. She is passionate about issues of race, gender and sexuality. She is author of “Spiritual Care In An Age of #BlackLivesMatter: Examining the Spiritual and Prophetic Needs of African Americans Living In A Violent America.” Danielle attended Chicago Theological Seminary, where she earned the Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees respectively. She’s currently a Ph.D student studying in the area of social media identity, violence and pastoral theology. 

Ruqaiyah Hibell

(Episode 43)

Ruqaiyah Hibell is the course leader for the Certificate in Muslim Chaplaincy course at Markfield Institute of Higher Education which is an annual short course that provides introductory chaplaincy training. Many students who graduate from the programme go on to work as chaplains in prisons, hospitals and universities, among other settings. Ruqaiyah also teaches academic writing skills to students. Her academic background is in social policy, European studies and security institutions. She has produced reports on conversion to Islam and regularly writes for The Muslim World Book Review, where she is a member of the editorial team. 

Dr Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham

(Episode 44)

Sheryl is Dean and Professor of Nursing at Trinity Western University in Metro Vancouver, Canada. She teaches the interrelated fields of spirituality and health, health policy, knowledge translation, and nursing philosophy. Her research is in the area of plurality and equity in healthcare, at the intersections of religion, race, class, and gender.  

Dr Sonya Sharma

(Episode 44)

Sonya is a sociologist of religion in the Social Research Institute at University College London, England. She has researched and published on religion and spirituality in healthcare settings, religion and intimacy between sisters, and the work of women healthcare chaplains. 

Ethel Maqeda

(Episode 45)

Ethel Maqeda is a Sheffield-based Zimbabwean British writer; theatre and creative writing facilitator. She is currently writing a creative non-fiction collection exploring Southern African women’s practice of Ubuntu in the diaspora. She lives by the philosophy of Ubuntu whose values relate to the interconnectedness of individuals with their surrounding societal and physical worlds. Ethel’s stories have appeared in various journals, including  Short Fiction: The Visual Literary Journal, Isele Magazine, Wasafiri Magazine, and the University of Sheffield’s creative writing journal (Route 57) and in anthologies, Volume-3 (Palm-Sized Press), We are not Shadows (Folkways Press), Wretched Strangers (Boiler House) and Verse Matters (Valley Press). 

Lee Barford

(Episode 46)

Lee's novel applications of AI and analytics--developed whilst whilst working in Silicon Valley for HP Laboratories, Agilent Laboratories, and Keysight Laboratories--have been adopted by organizations including Apple, Boeing, Cisco, Ford, HP, Microsoft, and NASA. Lee is a deacon of The Episcopal Church in the USA. He now lives in London where he serves at the parish of St Stephen with St John Westminster. He received the PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University and the MTh in Philosophical Theology from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. 

Mary Matthiesen

(Episode 47)

Mary Matthiesen is a Senior Healthcare & Hospice Educator and Community Engagement Facilitator. She is an inspirational speaker, and a consultant to leaders who care. Author of Dying to Make a Difference and Founding Director of Conversations for Life ™. Her passion is living and dying well (both and/not either or). www.conversationsforlife.co.uk www.marymatthiesen.com.

Lindsay DeWal

(Episode 48)

Lindsay de Wal was the first ever UK-based appointed head of chaplaincy as a humanist in February 2018 and made national and international headlines. She is currently the head of chaplaincy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, NRPSN manager of the Non-religious Pastoral Support Network, a supervisor and trainer at Humanists UK and a lecturer and research supervisor for an existential master's programme in the UK. Lindsay has a master's degree from the Netherlands at the University of Humanistic Studies (Utrecht) to provide humanist and existential counselling, coaching and pastoral care. Lindsay is accredited as a humanist pastoral carer through the UK Board of healthcare Chaplaincy (UKBHC), the Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network (NRPSN) and as a humanist funeral celebrant at Humanists UK. She’s currently undertaking doctoral research at Middlesex University concerning 'the experience of humanists entering faith-based healthcare chaplaincy teams'.   

Anna (Anne) Vandenhoeck

(Episode 49)

Anna (Anne) Vandenhoeck is a professor of pastoral and spiritual care at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. She used to be a chaplain at the university hospitals. Anne currently serves as director of the European Research Institute for HealthCare Chaplains (ERICH). 

Martin McGonigle

(Episode 50)

Martin has been an healthcare chaplain for 20 years, the past 16 specialising in Palliative and End of Life Care.  He has worked both in the NHS and the charitable sector and is a member of the Buddhist Healthcare Chaplains Trust.  Martin seeks to widen chaplaincy provision, hence the use of the title SPARCS (Spiritual Pastoral And Religious Care Service), so that service users may self-identify and have a range of ways in which their values; what give them strength, purpose, meaning, hope and love, can be supported.  It is core to his practice, that as healthcare providers we leave as much control as possible in the hands of the service user.