Peter Gilbert in 2003. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
Peter Gilbert, who has died aged 63 of motor neurone disease, came comparatively late in a lengthy social work occupation to what would be his abiding topic: spirituality in wellness and social care. His operate in striving to fight misunderstanding and suspicion of the topic amongst the professions was pioneering.
Gilbert was a devout but far from solemn Catholic whose operate was usually driven by his faith, but for him spirituality was wider than religion. His perform Guidelines on Spirituality for Workers Functioning in Acute Solutions (2008) has been used extensively, specifically inside the wellness services. He believed every person had a spiritual dimension – “one thing about the motivational force, some thing about the transcendent anything past ourselves that keeps us going,” as he put it – that necessary recognising. This applied to personnel, he explained, as a lot as people they cared for.
Gilbert was born to middle-class mothers and fathers in Jersey. He attended Really worth Abbey, West Sussex, an independent school run by Benedictines. Later on, it was whilst residing at Really worth Abbey as a member of the lay neighborhood that he met Sue Riley, a social employee, who grew to become his wife. They and their three daughters later on appreciated stays at the abbey, while he held yearly retreats there on spirituality in the workplace for managers in the public and personal sectors right up until sickness prevented him from carrying out so.
Soon after Well worth he attended Sandhurst and was commissioned. He noticed service in Northern Ireland, but this determined him to depart the army to take up social operate. At Oxford (1971-74) he go through historical past underneath Christopher Hill, the Marxist historian, about whom he always spoke warmly. He then acquired an MA in social work at Sussex University (1977), where he later obtained an MBA (1992).
When I very first met him, more than thirty many years in the past, he was functioning in West Sussex as social operate staff manager at the Forest Hospital, 1 of the last long-stay hospitals for understanding disabled men and women. He then he moved up the managerial ladder in the London borough of Merton, then Kent and Staffordshire prior to turning into director of social solutions in Worcestershire in 1997. What must have been the highpoint of his job proved to be its lowest. Following a series of monetary crises and a round of spending budget cuts, he misplaced his occupation in 2001. He felt he had been created a scapegoat.
He was really open about the significant depression that resulted and it brought him to the see that social care employees had to integrate private knowledge into their work. It was following this knowledge of job reduction and depression that he commenced to research and publish about spirituality in social care. He held conferences, wrote and disseminated good practice, some to counter the stigma harboured by some religions about psychological illness. His efforts gained impetus in 2003 when he became venture lead on spirituality and psychological well being for the National Institute of Mental Health.
He was also professor of social perform and spirituality at Staffordshire University, and later going to professor at the University of Worcester. He was visiting professor at the Birmingham and Solihull Foundation NHS Believe in, the place he led its spirituality study programme, and became adviser on spiritual care to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. In November he won the award for excellent contribution at the Social Worker of the Year awards.
His third guide, Spirituality and End of Existence Care, was begun when he was fit and working marathons. It was finished, with typical determination, months right after his illness had struck, and published earlier this 12 months.
Peter had a fine singing voice and friends will keep in mind his booming laugh and bonhomie.
He is survived by Sue and their 3 daughters, Jo, Mary and Ruth, and a grandson, Louis.
David Brindle writes: I came to know Peter in 2009 when I joined the board of the Nationwide Growth Staff for Inclusion, which he was then chairing. Working brisk meetings was not his strongest suit: so fascinated was he by the operate of the non-revenue organisation in helping to make communities and providers much more inclusive of older and disabled individuals, and individuals with mental overall health problems, that he tended to give totally free rein to discussion, led usually by himself. He was deeply troubled by the mid-Staffordshire hospitals scandal, in distinct by how his former faculty at Staffordshire university could have gone on sending nursing college students to the units on work placement without either them or their tutors apparently noticing the prevalence of abusive practice. The thought that they may well in truth have done so, but not spoken up, was practically also significantly for him to contemplate.
• Peter Duncan Gilbert, social worker and academic, born 15 April 1950 died 12 December 2013
Peter Gilbert obituary
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