Welcome

AFCNA: Facilitating Faith Community Nursing in Australia

Faith Community Nursing – bringing ‘nursing’ to the ‘faith community’ and ‘faith’ to ‘community nursing’!  

It offers a health dimension to pastoral care that increases its scope, depth and reach. It offers a unique approach to addressing many current problems in health, aged, disability and community care, by mobilising the many gifts and strengths of local churches in innovative ways to address contemporary health and social issues.

A Faith Community Nurse (FCN) bridges the gap between the person or family and the health and community care systems, by connecting the person with local support that can improve their whole health and promote wellbeing.

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Faith Community Care

AFCNA wants to promote loving, compassionate faith communities.

We hope to see every Christian faith community across Australia promote whole-person health and provide effective, compassionate care to its people and the community they serve.

Faith Community Care (FCC) is health focused pastoral care ministry using gifted and specifically trained volunteers and people with health professional knowledge and skills to effectively care for people in the church’s congregation and reach out to the community the church serves.

AFCNA helps Faith Communities and individuals with:

• resources for people and churches interested in Faith Community Care that seek to release ‘abundant life’ in every person (John 10:10, Holy Bible)
• Helps churches to commence and develop Faith Community Care ministry in their faith community
• Provides information for individuals, professionals and ministry workers in Christian faith communities e.g. pastors, pastoral care workers, allied health professionals, nurses, doctors and others who are interested in this topic
• Provides information that enables Christian health professionals and care workers to put their faith into action using their practice knowledge and skills
• Connects you with others with a passion for promoting health

Latest news and events

The course takes less than 30 minutes to complete and it is FREE.  Each session has a 5 minute video with an accompanying handout and some questions for you to reflect upon and action. They are aimed to help you develop compassionate care for yourself and for others in your community.

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AFCNA invites you to be part of God's work in the world! AFCNA is continually finding ways to engage, nurture, equip and network members’ for health and pastoral care ministry via Faith Community Care and Faith Community Nursing. We need partners to help us. Click here to read how you can partner with AFCNA.

Members

The Members Area has been transferred to our secure membership site. The 'Log in' is in the top right corner of any page or click here to join or renew your membership

Become a member of the association!

AFCNA membership is open to Christian people who embrace AFCNA’s vision, mission and purpose of facilitating quality, community care via our faith communities.

Our current members come from nursing, allied health and medical professionals, faith-based service providers in aged care, disability care, community care, health care, schools and churches.

We also welcome members with lived experience, interested citizens, students, academics, policymakers who bring their unique knowledge and experience to our shared purpose.

Add health to pastoral care. Free introductory resources to help you.

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As an FCN I make a REAL difference in someone’s life right where I live – you can too!

Kevin was tired… Eve, his wife, was becoming more challenging to care for. With her advancing dementia came more complicated behaviour, more cooking, cleaning and household work. The woman he loved was disappearing and the grief left Kevin sad, exhausted and overwhelmed.

Kevin knew there were aged care options to help him, but he was too tired to be bothered trying to navigate the ‘maze of paperwork’. He was sad at the thought of Eve moving to aged care, saying he felt as if he was failing her. “All her memories are here and she will have nothing of her past to hang on to if she goes into a home.” said Kevin dejectedly. I listened to Kevin’s heartfelt concerns. I located information about services and processes for respite and possible permanent care and talked to Kevin and his family about their options.

As a Faith Community Nurse (FCN) in my church I see people holistically, as body, mind and spirit, living in relationships, with God, others and the creation, so the support and care I bring considers all of those aspects. I always begin by listening and offering prayer to people if they want this. I provide many services such as health counselling,  education, support with navigating various care systems, I locate resources for people, I provide information and support  to people like Kevin so they can make informed decisions and take actions that support the health and wellbeing of their family.  God places us into community to “love one another” and in my FCN role I can “love my neighbour” in a meaningful and tangible way. I am part of the health and pastoral care ministry in our church where I bring a health focus that adds a helpful depth and scope to our pastoral care. I use my professional knowledge and skills to support many situations for people of all ages in my church, and I provide an outreach ministry to our local community. The opportunities in the FCN role are vast and life-changing for those we serve. I thoroughly recommend churches consider adding an FCN to their pastoral care ministry.