Journeys of Hope Podcast - Episode Fourteen

The work of the Spiritual Care Department at Blythedale Children's Hospital exemplifies the profound impact of compassionate, inclusive, and value-centered care. By listening to families, integrating spiritual practices, and fostering a sense of hope, spiritual care practitioner, Whitney Wilkerson, MDiv, BCC, NBC-HWC, play a crucial role in supporting families through their journeys.
In this episode of Journeys of Hope, it becomes clear that nurturing hope within the healthcare setting is not just about addressing medical needs but also about honoring the emotional and spiritual aspects of each family's experience. For families navigating the complexities of pediatric healthcare, spiritual care offers a vital source of strength, connection, and resilience.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Key Takeaways:

1. Inclusive spiritual care transcends religion to tap into universal human experiences, focusing on meaning, hope and connection
2. Rituals and creativity help anchor meaning in chaos by giving people a sense of continuity, safety, and identity
3.  Play and simple creative activities open an emotional window for children and adults to express fears and hopes indirectly
4. Supporting the caregiver's inner life is essential for sustaining compassionate care and preventing burnout
5. Honoring unanswered questions builds trust and resilience by giving people space for doubt, grief, and uncertainty

TRANSCRIPT

Rebecca Solomon (00:05)
Hello and welcome to Journeys of Hope, a podcast from Blythedale Children's Hospital inspired by the strength, resilience, and unshakable spirit of medically fragile children. My name is Rebecca Solomon. Let's begin. Today on the podcast, we're highlighting the Spiritual Care Department at Blythedale, devoted to supporting the spiritual, emotional, and cultural needs of patients, families, and staff. Joining us is Whitney Wilkerson, our spiritual care practitioner.

who offers compassionate, inclusive support to families of all faiths and those without a faith, helping them navigate spiritual struggles and integrate care into the overall treatment journey. Whitney, it's an honor to have you on our episode today.

Whitney Wilkerson (00:49)
Thank you.

Rebecca Solomon (00:50)
can you share a little bit about your own journey? What drew you to spiritual care and how did you find your way into this work?

Whitney Wilkerson (00:58)
I've always been drawn to spaces and places where meaning and purpose and community intersect. And that is indeed what spiritual care offers. And I realized at a certain point in my career that I wasn't as interested in providing answers to people as I was in walking alongside them as they discovered and searched for their own answers. And spiritual care...

does that. It helps people connect to their own value system, to what gives them a sense of meaning and strength and hope, and helps them to fortify and amplify that and figure out how is that alive in their life today and their life moving forward.

I began my career in marketing and I am a serial entrepreneur and I made a mid-career change building on many of the things that I had learned along the way about creating dynamic experiences for people. How that translates into spiritual care is ritual, ceremony, connecting with people and really getting to the heart of

what motivates them and what matters most to them. So in many ways, they seem like very different careers and at the same time, they're so complimentary and it makes so much sense why I built my career the way that I did and that I ultimately decided to really give myself to exploring what my spiritual life and the spiritual lives of others look like in our everyday life.

Rebecca Solomon (02:41)
It's so fascinating. It's interesting how really you did take a major career change, a shift, and it was almost like you're calling, because now this is what you're doing and you're thriving at it. And it's so interesting because, I mean, I, for one, you you hear the term spiritual care and many assume it's religious. How do you explain your work in a way that feels inclusive to families of all faiths and those without a faith at all?

Whitney Wilkerson (03:08)
For some people, their spiritual life is rooted in religion, and for many, it's not. But spiritual care is about what makes us human. It's about our values, it's about our hopes, it's about our fears, strengths, the questions that we ask ourselves, the questions that we ask God or the universe or our friends, and the connections that we have, whether it's to ourselves, to other people.

or to the transcendent, whatever we decide and feel that the transcendent is. For some, that's God. For some, it's awe. For some, it's standing out on a dark night and looking up at the stars and wondering, how is all of this possible? And spiritual care is rooted in the cultural framework of each person. And so it can be about religion, and it can be about so much more.

What is important to this person? Who are they? Where do they come from? What's their language? What are the foods that they eat? What are the rituals that are a part of their everyday life that help them to make meaning out of life and to help them to navigate with a sense of strength? And that sense of self, that cultural framework is what helps people to make, for example, medical decisions.

and it helps them to navigate through the choices that they make in life. So my job is not to help people to make a particular decision or guide them to a particular belief. It's to help identify what that is for them and then to support them as they make decisions and to support them so they feel seen, so they feel heard, and so that they feel buoyed and carried by their own source.

source of strength.

Rebecca Solomon (05:03)
and so important at a place like Blythedale Children's Hospital. paint that picture for us. What does inclusive value-centered spiritual care look like in practice at Blythedale?

Whitney Wilkerson (05:16)
First we listen. That's the first step. What matters to them? What gives them a sense of strength? What their traditions, their practices, their culture, what anchors them and brings them a sense of joy or connection? And listening for spiritual themes that reflect a common humanity or common human experience. So a colleague, Mark Bartel identifies the spiritual themes as beauty, integrity,

faith, hope, and love. And so we listen, and then in practice, it's about creating opportunities to reflect and creating opportunities to have a sense of belonging. Belonging to community, belonging to family, belonging to a wider web, community programs, creating rituals, honoring celebrations of identity and culture.

and also being with people in those quiet moments of reflection or value-centered play. So we listen and then we engage in practices and meaning-making and experiences that really amplify.

part of the work of spiritual care is to shape a hospital culture and to influence and to create fertile ground where hospital culture can empower staff to care for the whole person. So we have clinical staff caring for the body, for the mind, and also the spirit, the whole person, their whole story.

and also tending to the culture around the patient, around the child. So tending to that community and making sure that it represents the values of Blythedale and the values that we want to bring to the care that we offer.

Rebecca Solomon (07:09)
I'm sure many times you hear from the patients, their families, caregivers, why is this happening, right? A lot of unanswered questions when people enter Blythedale, so much uncertainty and so many times they get those questions answered during their time here at Blythedale, but.

the question of why is this happening to me, to my loved one? How do we live through this? How do you, how does spiritual care help hold those questions?

Whitney Wilkerson (07:41)
The truth is that we might never know why in some circumstances. And what a huge and often challenging question to hold and to have to hold open because the answers are not there. so spiritual care helps honor those questions.

helps a family, a patient, the patient's ecosystem explore their beliefs and discover supports, whether those are internal or external, that help them to move forward one moment at a time. And that may mean moving forward with data and with answers, or it might mean moving forward without. So I don't try to answer the unanswerable. That is not my role. Instead, I create the space where those

questions can be spoken without being fixed. Maybe not fixed, but supported and tended to and cared for and respected and honored. And sometimes the act of voicing pain or confusion or grief begins to bring relief.

Rebecca Solomon (08:51)
Yeah, it's almost like you're giving them clarity and they're getting relief by you doing what you're doing in the way that you're doing it, which is so special and so important and goes with the title of our podcast, Journeys of Hope. You're helping them along their journey and giving them hope in a way that is so organic and necessary in this hospital setting.

Whitney Wilkerson (09:15)
And I'd also add, so unique. Every situation is so unique. And as a provider of spiritual care, the work is about seeing who is in front of me and what makes them who they are, and then entering into that world and supporting them based on their worldview.

Rebecca Solomon (09:40)
I love that. We know that you like to have a little bit of fun, and I use the word fun because I find art and play and storytelling fun. Those are fun, lighthearted activities that circulate around our hospital halls and units. And you turn to those activities in your work. Why does creativity resonate so deeply, especially for families who may not connect with traditional religious language?

Whitney Wilkerson (10:10)
There's a misconception that spiritual care is only relevant or only needed during moments of crisis.

Chaplains or spiritual care providers are also about creating and amplifying joy and creativity has a way of bypassing the analytical mind and going straight to the heart and it gives people language for emotions and spiritual experiences that they may not otherwise have or know how to express and

Art and play are universal.

we all use play because that's the language that our patients use. And art and play, invite people, patients, families to imagine. They invite them to hope, to feel joy, to remember who they are beyond their illness.

and what the future might look for themselves. It also helps them to process spiritual distress or spiritual questions that they might be holding.

traditional religious or spiritual language doesn't feel accessible, creativity opens up another doorway, a portal to meaning and connection.

Rebecca Solomon (11:25)
and I'd love to hear maybe an example or two of how a simple creative activity like painting, crafting, storytelling, how it becomes a meaningful moment for a child or family.

Whitney Wilkerson (11:37)
often when people think of chaplains, they associate us with death and dying and death, dying, bereavement are integral to our scope of practice. And we also help orient people to joy and to awe. And joy is life giving. So spiritual care providers work to create conditions to experience joy.

Some examples that I can think of here at Blythedale  bubble blessings is an experience offered as people are leaving after a long night shift and coming for the early morning shift where we at the entryway cascade the entire region with bubbles and offer affirming words, life-giving words, words that are

lifting up and booing of the human spirit. And what better way to end your shift or begin your shift than with somebody who is offering you a positive affirmation or words that really go right to the heart and speak to things that bring you joy, things that are unique about you, and really amplifying the goodness of life.

I'm so proud of a collaboration between spiritual care and music therapy bringing bubble blessings to our long-term care facility and there we schedule time and when our residents are done with school they get to experience bubble blessings which they get live music ambient music

created by our music therapist, who has also crafted a beautiful song that celebrates the uniqueness of each of our residents. And we offer those words, we offer that music, that song, along with bubbles. And it's an opportunity for our residents to connect with one another in community, for staff to join in and really offer something so playful, so life-giving, so heart-lifting.

Rebecca Solomon (13:42)
It really is so special. know my first bubble blessings that I experienced when I became an employee of Blythedale it was also very emotional because I think it offers some, this like release of emotions and a calming environment. it's such a beautiful activity to have at the hospital.

What role do rituals, blessings, legacy making or memory building play in helping families feel grounded during hospitalization?

Whitney Wilkerson (14:17)
Rituals can help create steadiness in times that feel fragmented.

They can mark transitions, they can honor emotions, they can help a family or a patient claim moments of meaning in a setting that often feels chaotic. Being in a hospital, there's providers coming in and out of the room all the time and that can feel almost turbulent at times, not having a space that is like home. so rituals can really help ground and center. And a ritual might be

a blessing or a structured opportunity to help a family, to help a patient, to help staff feel connected to themselves, maybe to their child, to their hopes, and to their community, or to put closure on a tough chapter or an experience that felt really challenging.

Rebecca Solomon (15:17)
We have so many families of different backgrounds and upbringings and communities coming to our hospital. So how do you actually create those rituals of comfort and connection for these families?

Whitney Wilkerson (15:31)
Well, it begins with listening and doing an exploration and an assessment of what is this person's value system. Love, gratitude, courage, humor, community, connection. And then we build a ritual around those. And it might be lighting a electric candle together. It might be naming a hope for the day or for the week.

decorating a small object to keep at bedside as a reminder or creating a shared moment of breathing together, grounding, and really focusing on intention, for example, before a procedure or a particular conversation. And rituals require intention, connection, and they require presence.

Rebecca Solomon (16:20)
They sure do. And I think this is an interesting conversation to just continue a little bit more talking about the rituals. They're in these everyday activities and everyone's idea of a ritual may look a little different, but they're still there and they're so important for each patient. How can something as simple as, you know, playing a card game or doing some sort of a decoration, how can that become spiritually grounding?

Whitney Wilkerson (16:50)
Our lives are spiritual in nature and anything done with intention can become a ritual. For example,

One practice that anchors me spiritually is for over 10 years, I've had a text thread with a colleague and this text thread is centered around a daily gratitude practice. Every day I'm invited to share something that I'm grateful for, something that is uplifting, something that is good.

Anything that we bring intention to can become a ritual that is meaningful in one way or another.

Rebecca Solomon (17:29)
We're all active in rituals. We may not even know it at the time, but we are. And that's... Sure. Absolutely.

Whitney Wilkerson (17:35)
Think about a cup of coffee in the morning. Is that a ritual? And do

we go through the motion of just grabbing it and drinking it, or are we present with it? What makes it a ritual? It's really about the intention and the presence.

Rebecca Solomon (17:50)
I love

that. So many uplifting, positive things coming out of your department. And day in and day out, you're just so inspiring and uplifting for so many people. And the reality is the work can be emotionally intense. And we know that. That's the atmosphere that we're in at a children's hospital.

I'm just curious to know what are some of the challenges that you face and how do you sustain yourself while supporting families through difficult seasons?

Whitney Wilkerson (18:27)
It can be very challenging. In my role, I am walking alongside individuals, those patients, their loved ones, and our staff who are often holding so much tenderness and so much grief. how do I, as a spiritual care practitioner and a provider of care here within these walls, hold that while often, while at the same time staying

open-hearted and I rely on my own rituals. I rely on my own grounding practices. I rely on the things in my life that help me to feel connected. So that could be colleagues who understand the intimacy and the tenderness of this work. It's creativity. It's time and nature and physical activity. It's moments of quiet and connecting to a sense of awe in my own daily life. What does all look like for me?

and the small rituals that remind me that I'm part of a larger community of care. That while I am one person, I am not alone. I am part of a much wider web.

Rebecca Solomon (19:42)
And it really is that finding that support, not only for you, but also for our families. We talk about this on this podcast. The parents and the caregivers, need that support to help them get through day to day, whatever is going through their minds and their hearts. It's so important to have that for everyone.

So that's great. Let's talk a little bit about these kiddos, right? We know they love their games. We know they love their play. A lot of play happening, whether it's in therapy or in their units. And

we know there is so much importance around play, those silly moments, right? It helps the children express fears and hopes.

or even spiritual questions that they may not be able to put into words. So I'm curious to hear from you, in what ways does this play open a window into their inner world while building trust and emotional safety?

Whitney Wilkerson (20:39)
Play is the child's natural language and introducing pretend scenarios, storytelling, silly games, opportunities for self-expression. Children reveal who they are, what worries them, what comforts them, and how they make sense of their world. And play builds trust. It's meeting them in the language that they know. And as adults,

Play is also our language. Unfortunately, it's a language that often we lose touch with. And what a joy to be able to connect with play within myself and to witness my colleagues using play. And it creates emotional safety.

Play allows a child to approach spiritual questions sideways. So through imagination, through symbols, through humor, rather than head on, which can feel often too vulnerable or not developmentally appropriate.

That said, I've had some of the deepest spiritual conversations with children. Children who have expressed having a near-death experience and having had a conversation with God as they know God to be. And those are children who didn't need play. They wanted to talk. They wanted to express.

They wanted to be joined in that experience and to have somebody safe who they could express this experience with and who could help them get curious about it. What does that mean? What did God say? What did you take away from that? What comes next?

Rebecca Solomon (22:32)
From play to food, we love our food at Blythedale and people love food around the world, right? How does food, snacks, through celebrations or culturally meaningful meals, how does it become a form of spiritual and emotional care in the hospital?

Whitney Wilkerson (22:49)
Food is connection. It's memory, it's culture, it's comfort, it's celebration. Honoring a holiday food tradition can help families feel connected and grounded in who they are, especially when they're so far away from home or their community. And sharing food builds community. It's an important part of the healing process to feel that one belongs. And our

environmental services team and our food service team are such a good example of this. I always say to them, you are keepers of sacred space. When you prepare food, you are engaging in something that all over the world people are doing to bring communities together, to bring families together over the dinner table or the floor, wherever it is that they are living in the world.

They are nourishing the body and the mind and the spirit so that it can heal and move on to what's next.

food brings people together.

Rebecca Solomon (23:58)
It definitely does. That's great. And tell us a little bit about what have been some of the most meaningful or rewarding moments for you as a spiritual care practitioner at Blythedale

Whitney Wilkerson (24:09)
Something I've learned along the way is how much courage and how much vulnerability it can take for somebody to ask for help. And when someone stops by my door, when someone grabs me in the hall, I'm constantly touched by them stepping into that courage and vulnerability and saying, I don't want to hold this alone. And I could use...

a thought partner or somebody to express myself to. I am looking for words of encouragement because today is a hard day. And that's an indicator of trust that's been built and that's so incredibly meaningful for me. Chocolate rounds is another example of something that's deeply rewarding to me. Chocolate rounds is walking around the hospital and paying a visit to different units.

to our nurses, our nursing assistants, to our pharmacy department, our social work team, and offering them a sweet treat, usually in the afternoon. But more importantly, it's an opportunity to connect and build relationships and to cultivate a community of care.

Also, what a beautiful opportunity to connect with people, not just when they are in stress or de-stress, but also amid the ups and downs of everyday life.

Also, we have a program here that is called the Blanket Bridge. This is something that came out of a spiritual care vision and has really blossomed with the support of our patient ambassador. And it's an opportunity to connect individuals from our outside community who are crafty. They're knitters, they're crocheters, they are crafty in one way or another.

And we asked these members of the community to make homemade blankets. And each new admission at Blythedale on our second floor receives one of these handmade blankets, a blanket that's representative of someone in the community who cares about their health and their well-being and their recovery journey. And these blankets are presented to our patients from their nursing assistants.

The nursing assistants here oversee the sleep space of our patients. Sleep is sacred time. Sleep is when we rest and we heal, when we dream, when our subconscious comes to life. And sleep is indeed a very special time. And so the nursing assistants work with our new admissions to choose a blanket that really speaks to that patient or that family.

what color, and so it really helps connect our nursing assistants to a sense of meaning and purpose and the beauty of the work that they do and the importance of the work that they do and the impact that it has on our patients. And it also allows connection to happen between those nursing assistants who bathe and comb and feed and hold and do so much important work here.

and it's an opportunity to build and strengthen the relationship between them and the patient so that there's a deeper connection as that patient moves through their time at Blythedale. Seeing our nursing assistants care for our patients in a spiritually enriching way and having an opportunity to care for our nursing assistants in a spiritually enriching way is one of the most meaningful things to me.

Rebecca Solomon (28:01)
It's so special and it really is such a win-win for our NAs and for our patients, right? Building that bond through something as warm and comforting as a blanket. And we have this closet in the hospital where the blankets sit until they're ready to be given to a patient. And it's just beautiful seeing all of the different fabrics and patterns and colors. And it's really a cool initiative. Kudos to you for starting this project.

And I'd love to hear even a little bit more about Community Cafe if you'd like to share.

Whitney Wilkerson (28:33)
So much of our spiritual lives, I might make the case that our entire spiritual life is about connection. So that's connection to self, to others in our life, to our larger community, maybe our identity and our culture, to the world and to the transcendent, to awe. And so the community cafe is an opportunity to cultivate and create connection here within our walls.

Our families are often very isolated because they stay bedside. They are caring for their child as they navigate their time here at Blythedale. That means infrequent visits back home, sometimes no visits back home. And so the community cafe supports the nourishment with food, the nourishment of our families by offering a free meal monthly on a Saturday.

in our cafeteria. We transform the space, we bring in flowers and decorations and music and games and make it a novel experience and provide food and also create community. We talked earlier about my prior career and how I shifted mid-career into spiritual care and that prior experience in my professional life

really gave me an insight into the experience that people have when walking into a space. worked in marketing, I worked in luxury fashion, I worked in publishing, and so it was very much about the experience that somebody has and the small details matter,

Novel experience can be food for the soul. And the community cafe gives our families an opportunity to leave bedside, come out, come into the cafeteria and connect with one another, among and within their own family units, but also to connect with other families. And it's been such a joy to see parents and aunts and friends.

of our patients connect with other parents and walk away with a new friend, with someone who can support them as they walk around the halls of the hospital and saying, wow, I thought I was the only one here in the hospital who felt that way or was having this experience or that my child was the only one with that diagnosis. And suddenly they leave. They leave with a full belly and with a new friend.

Rebecca Solomon (31:18)
No one's walking the halls alone at Blythedale It's really another great initiative that we offer here through your department. If you're listening to this podcast and you are interested in participating in Community Cafe, or maybe you'd like to make and donate some blankets for our blanket bridge or any or all of the above, definitely reach out to us. We'd love to get you started on your journey to helping some of our families at Blythedale

So great. All right, Whitney, do have one more question I would like to ask you. How would you describe the meaning of hope?

Whitney Wilkerson (31:57)
I sometimes hear hope talked about in terms of positivity. And I would say that hope is the deep understanding that there's always more to see beyond one's current circumstances. That this is one moment in time and that there is so much more than what is here and what is now that

will and might unfold.

hope is the deep understanding that there's always more to see beyond my current circumstances.

Rebecca Solomon (32:33)
I love that. And I wouldn't expect anything less from you. And with the work you do, you do provide that hope for so many people. So it was interesting hearing your thoughts on all of the above. Thank you so much, Whitney, for being a guest on this podcast. I appreciate it. Appreciate all you do. And we hope you listening at home enjoy this episode of Journeys of Hope. If you have ideas for future topics, we'd love to hear from you. Podcast at blythedale.org.

Whitney Wilkerson (32:51)
Thank you.

Rebecca Solomon (33:03)
And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and like and follow us on social media. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time.