Beginnings of Chaplaincy

Chaplaincy originated in 337 CE when a young soldier St Martin of Tours first cared for his fellow soldiers in the Roman Army.

From this moment on, Chaplains have always had a presence in military services across the world, and continue to this day both in times of conflict and in peace time duties.

Chaplaincy services quickly expanded to settings like healthcare, with ministers often visiting hospitals
As an extension of the military context, chaplaincy grew across emergency services organisations, aged care, schools, industry and disaster management.

Today, you will find chaplains providing pastoral care in most emergency service organisations here in Australia and worldwide.

“The goal is to provide support that allows the affected person to re-establish their
own sense of wellbeing in keeping with their cultural beliefs and values.”

Pastoral Care helps to:

• Give definition to who we are post a stressful or critical incident
• Often provides a structure for understanding the world and events that occur
• Providing a mechanism to transcend events of this life.

What Pastoral Care is NOT:

• A religious service. It is for everyone, whether you come from a faith background or not.
• Proselytising or evangelising
• Imposing a process onto a person
• Having all the answers.

Pastoral Care (Chaplaincy) is about listening and supporting a person through any issues or challenges they may be dealing with in their life.

They can provide:

• A safe space to tell their story
• A sense of emotional safety and security
• Help to navigate and normalise your experiences, thoughts and feelings
• Support your dignity and self-worth
• Re-establish a sense of hope
• Enable grief and sadness without judgement
• Provide a conduit to other support services that may be helpful

Pastoral Care has grown into the profession we know today with professional standards and codes of conduct and augments other wellbeing and support services such as social work and psychology.

The following Chaplains are RAAV Members: 

Gary Grant Senior AV Chaplain & pastoral Care Advisor to the Committee of Management

Jim Buchanan - Ballarat 

Jenny McGuirk Metro North & Metro East

Tom Rose Metro East