Specialty Roles of the Palliative Care Chaplain and Social Worker: Differentiation and Overlap - PubMed
3 hours ago
- #Role Differentiation
- #Palliative Care
- #Interprofessional Collaboration
- The article outlines the development of a practical tool to clarify role differentiation and overlap between advanced practice chaplains and social workers in specialty palliative care teams.
- The tool is presented as a Venn diagram, delineating assessment, intervention, and professionalism across social work-specific, chaplain-specific, and shared competencies, grounded in transdisciplinary practice theory.
- Social workers focus on psychological, social, and systems-level assessments, while chaplains assess spiritual, religious, and existential concerns; both provide psychosocial and spiritual support, grief counseling, and contribute to care planning and team wellness.
- The tool emphasizes cross-domain screening where all team members screen across physical, psychosocial, and spiritual-existential domains, with specialists conducting in-depth assessments.
- Implementation requires organizational commitment to transdisciplinary practice, adequate staffing, and systemic recognition of both professions' essential contributions to comprehensive palliative care.