Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional and National Tragedy by Stephen B. Roberts


Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional and National Tragedy
Title : Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional and National Tragedy
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1594735875
ISBN-10 : 9781594735875
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 384
Publication : First published March 1, 2008

The first comprehensive resource for pastoral care in the face of disaster a vital resource for clergy, seminarians, pastoral counselors and caregivers of all faith traditions. Updated and expanded!

This essential resource for clergy and caregivers integrates the classic foundations of pastoral care with the unique challenges of disaster response on community, regional and national levels.

Offering the latest theological perspectives and tools along with basic theory and skills from the best disaster response texts, research and concepts the contributors to this resource are innovators in their fields and represent Christianity, Judaism, Islam and more.

New to this edition are chapters on: N-VOAD Points of Consensus and Guidelines A Developing ConversationEthics in Disaster Spiritual CareAssessmentDeveloping a Theological Framework for Providing Disaster Spiritual CareAnd More

Exploring how spiritual care changes following a disaster, and including a comprehensive explanation of a disaster's lifecycle, this is the definitive guidebook for counseling not only the victims of disaster but also the clergy and caregivers who are called to service in the wake of crisis."


Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Community, Regional and National Tragedy Reviews


  • Jennifer Lucking

    A wonderful resource! Great for anyone working with people in trauma. I benefited less from the chapters that relied heavily on pointing people to resources - they were very American specific.

  • Jamie Pennington

    I was a police/fire chaplain for almost six years. In addition to that I have worked with many Emergency Disaster Services from my very first experience of the Northridge Earthquake to World Trade Center to Joplin Tornado to most recently Hurricane Harvey and many in between. I have been a past vice chair to a state VOAD and I have chaired LTDRC. This book covers just about everything you need to know from all angles of this.

    Only two slight criticisms I would have on the book. First, it has a heavy emphasis on the American Red Cross. There are plenty of other disaster organizations out there besides the Red Cross. In fact the red cross is in and of itself not a faith based organizations as the majority of organizations in VOAD are faith based. Also my experience with the Red Cross has generally been one that frowns upon any spiritual care opting instead for mental health care. Frowning even on praying with and for people on a voluntary effort.

    Second I wish the book would talk a bit more about death notifications. How to do them right. I could tell you so many, many sad unfortunate stories of death notifications done wrong and the harm they have caused. Frequently clergy are called upon to do these death notifications and while no one like to do these we need to know how to do them right.

    Overall however this is an excellent book.

  • Jonathan A.

    a clear and direct book looking at a variety of ways a religious person/community can be trained, prepared, and competent in responding to a disaster. While some of the points were stated by multiple authors creating some redundancy, there were still enough gems to make the book worthwhile.

  • RevRonR

    Just the best of the best on book on spiritual care in disaster settings. It comes from a number of authors of varying faith and religious backgrounds. There are many helpful charts throughout. It covers the wide range of disaster settings and it would be hard to believe that anyone would be disappointed after reading this book - especially if they know anything about providing care in traumatic situations.

  • Brenda

    Of the three texts utilized in my course, this was the most basic and informative. Yet, for a book with it's third printing in 2015 it lacks much in design and format.