Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Socialbilty
Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Socialbilty
The Distance Manager: A Hands on Guide to Managing off-Site Employees and Virtual Teams
The Distance Manager: A Hands on Guide to Managing off-Site Employees and Virtual Teams
The mechanics of trust: a framework for research and design
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
When humans need humans: The lack of use of computer-based ICT in distance pastoral care
Interacting with Computers
CRIWG'11 Proceedings of the 17th international conference on Collaboration and technology
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Traditionally, Christian pastoral care has always been given face-to-face. However, since the Internet made e-mail a common form of correspondence, people have been e-mailing friends to discuss problems and other matters. More formal pastoral care, involving a pastoral minister, has generally remained a face-to-face occurrence. This article explores the possibility of e-mail being used for Christian pastoral care and evaluates one such system being operated in the United Kingdom. The results show that with an empathic and positive response to the e-mails by the pastoral minister, e-mail pastoral care can increase positive emotion, and hence well-being, in the person seeking care. In addition, the religious aspect of Christian pastoral care seems to be important in initialising the minister-person relationship.