Spiritual Care and Counselling Skills
This fully online short course equips you with foundational skills in spiritual care and counselling for patients, families, and healthcare workers in the hospital environment. Whether you're a church volunteer, ministry leader, or someone called to walk alongside the sick, this course will give you practical tools rooted in compassionate, person-centred care.
What You'll Learn
Through video lectures, a comprehensive training manual, reflection exercises, and curated academic reading, you'll explore how illness affects the whole person- body, mind, relationships, and spirit. You'll develop basic counselling and active listening skills, learn how to conduct a spiritual assessment, and gain confidence in offering meaningful support within the healthcare setting. Topics include the impact of illness, hospital etiquette, empathetic listening, the narrative approach, spirituality in healthcare, the use of Scripture and prayer, and focused pastoral care for cancer, surgery, and chronic illness.
Course Duration
This course comprises approximately 15–20 hours of study, including nearly 2 hours of video content across 5 modules, a 63-page training manual with reflection exercises and case studies, curated further reading from peer-reviewed and academic sources, quizzes after each section, and a final essay (for the UP certificate option only).
You can work through the material at your own pace.
Online Delivery
This is a fully online short course delivered via Google Classroom. Study from the comfort of your home. Once enrolled, you'll receive a link via email (or find it in your Student Portal on our website) to join the classroom.
Course Structure
Watch each video module. Complete the reflection exercises. Pass the quizzes to progress through the course. If you selected the UP certificate option, submit a final essay.
Course Options
Option 1- R1,100: Includes the HospiVision Certificate of Attendance.
Option 2- R2,100: Includes the HospiVision Certificate AND the University of Pretoria (UP) Certificate of Attendance.
Important Certification Details
To receive the UP certificate, you must successfully complete the required essay. UP certificates are released annually- the cutoff date for the current cycle is October 2026, and certificates for this cycle will be released by March 2027.
Financial Support
Partial funding is available. Please note that the Diaconia bursary covers the R1,100 course fee, and the John Templeton Foundation covers R1000 (HospiVision Certificate). They do not cover the additional cost for the UP certificate and the John Templeton Foundation Scholarship has a R100 registration fee.
Diaconia Bursary- You qualify if you are a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, Calvin Protestant Church, or United Reformed Church.
John Templeton Foundation Scholarship- If you are not a member of the above churches, you may apply for this scholarship.
To apply, select the relevant bursary/scholarship option from the "Payment Method" dropdown at the top of this page and complete the application form via our website.
Enrollment Process
All online short courses must be purchased directly through our website.
EFT (Bank Transfer): Select "EFT" at checkout- your course access will be activated once funds have cleared.
Refund Policy
Unfortunately, we cannot offer refunds for courses not attended, but we can provide a credit note valid for 12 months. You may use it for any of our short courses or transfer it to someone else.
If applying for a bursary, your enrollment will be pending approval of your application.
