In 2021, Mission Australia began implementing chaplaincy services in specifically identified communities across Australia. The aim was to support people experiencing significant disadvantage. To ensure the chaplaincy services offer best practice services, Alphacrucis University College have been tasked with developing a new model of chaplaincy delivery. A core concept of this new instrument is to measure wellbeing, both spiritual and personal Wellbeing. Mission Australia currently uses the Personal Wellbeing Index (International Wellbeing Group, 2013) however there currently is no useable spiritual wellbeing measure. Therefore, a spiritual wellbeing instrument is being created. Currently there is no theoretically valid or useable instruments to do this so it has been decided to develop a new measuring scale. The problem encountered is that there is no valid instrument that can adequately test spiritual wellbeing. Therefore, a new instrument has been developed. Like all new instruments, it requires testing to ensure its validity and reliability. The aim of this project is to test the psychometric properties of the new instrument including its validity and reliability. The results will be used to discover if there is a positive correlation between spiritual wellbeing and general wellbeing.

The significance of this project is to ensure the reliability of the measuring instrument that will measure spiritual wellbeing and be used to measure the efficacy of programs. It will be used alongside the Personal Wellbeing Index that is already in use, to compare a client’s spiritual and general wellbeing. Once validity has been established, the Spiritual Wellbeing Index will then be incorporated into the larger Mission Australia project of creating a chaplaincy model for use within the community.