Faith

Those are the words of a man who knows how to make friends and influence people - well Brits anyway.

He's Ken Blanton, Mental Health chaplain - American himself, but drawn to work over here by that very quality of spirituality he claims to detect.

Ken not only operates as a United Reform Church chaplain, he's manager of a whole multifaith team.

If you're a patient and you'd like to see an Anglican, or a Baptist or a Catholic of a Sikh or a Muslim his team can oblige. And he's busy recruiting so that no-one: Pagan, Druid, Buddhist or other can ever be left out!

The chaplains try, when they can, to be interchangeable. They're aware of the common threads which can draw the different faiths together.

Ken's background in the psychology of religion makes him acutely aware of a common search for meaning, care and comfort.

Where religious rituals are concerned, he'll tell you there's a quiet room available for services 24/7 (well he is an American).

Far from bureaucratic, he nevertheless encourages everyone in the Mental Health service to make they fill in a spiritual assessment form for patients when they arrive, so that they're asked about their denomination or tradition and given the chance to see a chaplain.

One of his team's already gone out to convey to Community Health teams the importance of spirituality, and to help break down what he sees as a traditional tendency to avoid dealing with things religious.

Although he's only been in Derby for four months, Ken's already delighted with the degree of diversity he's found, and with his invitation to join the Forum of Faiths:

"I think everyone's hungry to have that sense of togetherness".

Talking to people from across the whole religious spectrum he reports that he's continually told "Derby's home, and we want to make it the best we can".

That's a mission our chaplain manager considers far from impossible.