Retired local spiritual care practitioner given award

A retired Winnipeg spiritual care practitioner has received a national award for her decades of work on behalf of patients and for those who work in the field.

Lynn Granke, 69, was recognized for her work as manager of spiritual care at Victoria Hospital and for her service to the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care. The award was given at the organization’s annual convention in Ottawa during the last week of April.

Granke was honoured with the Verda Rochon Award, with the association noting Granke’s “outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of psychospiritual health.”

Granke retired in 2017 after 20 years at Victoria Hospital.

“She spearheaded a lot of significant changes in the association,” said Canadian Association for Spiritual Care board president Ajith Varghese.

This included mentoring and training spiritual care practitioners, advocating for better pay for people working in that field and promoting better access to spiritual care for patients in Manitoba hospitals.1

She did this “out of deep compassion and commitment to help people,” Varghese said, adding she was a gifted teacher “who led with courage and grace.”

Part of that was helping the association integrate the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, so that Indigenous people would have their spiritual needs met in the province’s hospitals.

Granke, who was surprised to receive the award, said it was an opportunity to shine light on spiritual care and psychospirituality, which sees psychology and spiritual life as interconnected.

“It’s about being open and listening for the sacred,” she said of her work with patients. “Other professions, such as social work and psychologists, typically don’t do that.”

People trained in psychospirituality are curious about the many different ways people search for meaning and purpose and their connection to God or something beyond themselves, Granke said.

“It’s about care for the whole person,” she said, adding that health care can sometimes end up focusing only on the body and mind and ignoring the spiritual dimension.

“We want to honour the whole person … if spirituality is important to them, if it’s why they live and breathe, why not want to know about it?” she asked.

“How ever people view spirituality, we want to use it to help them.”

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