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b) The interviews
The seven chaplains who were interviewed identified themselves as Church of
England ministers with six being fully ordained and one being a non-ordained reader.
All are part-time, voluntary chaplains to the police who are unpaid for their ministry. A
full summary of these interviews can be found at Appendix 4 of this work, and what
follows is a précis of the key themes identified by the research.
The first theme relates to the background context of chaplaincy. Generally speaking
the chaplains identified that they had come to the ministry either through their own
initiative or through the recommendation and encouragement of another chaplain.
There was some acknowledgement that the Chief Constable had been proactive in
seeking chaplaincy support from the local Anglican Bishops (A4:Q1). None of the
chaplains however identified any formal selection process (A4:Q2), and similarly only
two outlined that they had been given induction training. By contrast six respondents
highlighted that ongoing formation is provided by way of an annual conference that
addresses some of the key issues affecting the service (A4:Q3). The chaplains were
divided upon the issue of supervision with some suggesting that this was provided by
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the Senior Force Chaplain , and others reporting that they were self-supervising
(A4:Q4).
The second theme relates to the role of chaplaincy within the police service. In
common terms the purpose of the ministry is understood to be to ‘support officers
and staff, and their families’, by ‘just being there’ as ‘an open’ and ‘listening ear’
(A4:Q5), and by providing ‘something beyond religion, something human’ (A4:Q8).
This support is offered across all ranks of the organisation, although it was suggested
that although the ministry is principally a grassroots service, there could be better
interaction with the senior levels of the service (A4:Q7). There is a general
consensus that the ministry remains valid within the service, and the influence of both
the CPA and the Chief Constable in developing the profile of faith issues was seen
