In this episode, Gillian Straine speaks with Clare Whitney, a lay chaplain at Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital and member of the GoHealth Community, currently training for ordination in the Church of England.
Clare's journey into chaplaincy began in a deeply personal moment — finding herself at her child's hospital bedside and encountering the ministry of chaplaincy first-hand. That experience of vulnerability became the seed of a vocation.
Together, Gillian and Clare explore what it really means to be a hospital chaplain: navigating busy wards, not always knowing whether someone wants to talk, and learning to come with what Clare describes as empty hands — offering presence rather than answers, in the liminal spaces where people find themselves when life has been turned upside down.
They reflect on the ministry of listening and story — how faith equips chaplains to help people make sense of their experiences — and on the particular challenge of living with the unfinished: rarely knowing how the story ends once someone leaves hospital.
The conversation also touches on the reality of ministering in contexts of profound loss, including pregnancy loss and the funerals of very young children, and on how chaplains care for themselves in a demanding and often unseen ministry.
Clare reflects on what the wider church might learn from chaplaincy — including a ministry of presence that resists the pressure to measure success in numbers and outcomes.
Content note: This episode touches on themes of pregnancy loss.
In this episode:
How Clare came to chaplaincy through her own experience as a hospital parent
What a typical day looks like as a hospital chaplain
The ministry of "empty hands" and presence in liminal spaces
Listening to people's stories and helping them find meaning
Living with the unfinished — when you don't get to know how it ends
Self-care and trauma awareness in chaplaincy ministry
What the church can learn from chaplains
Resources mentioned:
The Chaplaincy Course: Healing and Presence — GoHealth's new online course exploring the ministry of presence, the theology of healing, loss and lament, and the science of pastoral ministry. Available from mid-April at gohealth.org.uk
Sonnet 4.6