The Importance of Client Religious Beliefs and Practices in the Education of Counselors in CACREP‐Accredited Programs

Abstract

Responses by heads of CACREP‐accredited programs to a survey indicate that client religious beliefs are considered to be important curricular components in just over half of the programs.

Spiritual and Religious Competencies: A National Survey of CACREP‐Accredited Programs

“…Although only 22% of respondents indicated that their program had a specific course dealing with spirituality, 69% reported that their program addressed these issues within the curriculum. This is an increase in the number of programs that report addressing spirituality and religion compared with previous research (i.e., Kelly, 1997;Pate & High, 1995). Nevertheless, it remains unclear how spirituality and religion are addressed in these programs.…”

“…In recent years, researchers have found that about half of accredited counseling programs reported including spiritual and religious issues as part of training (Kelly, 1997;Pate & High, 1995), which makes the results of this study interesting for several reasons. First, this study provides empirical support for the inclusion of spiritual and religious knowledge competencies in counselors' training because respondents tended to show moderately strong agreement that the competencies under investigation are important for effective preparation of counselors-in-training.…”

“…In his study, Kelly (1994) found that of 341 accredited and nonaccredited counselor education programs, only 25% reported that religion and spirituality were included as a course component. In Pate and High's (1995) study of CACREP-accredited counselor training programs, 60% of the respondents reported attention given to clients' religious belief and practices in the Social and Cultural Foundations core area. In a study of 48 programs accredited only by CACREP (as opposed to programs with multiple accreditations), Kelly (1997) found that slightly more than half reported that spirituality and religion were included in some aspect of their training programs.…”

“…The purpose of the present study was to extend the Young et al (1998) study with counselor educators in CACREP-accredited programs. Although previous researchers (Kelly, 1994(Kelly, ,1997Pate & High, 1995) have surveyed counselor education programs regarding the inclusion of spiritual and religious issues in counseling, none have used the competencies established at the Summit on Spirituality as a template for the research. Three research questions were addressed.…”

Research to develop spiritual pedagogy, awareness and change

“…The thrust of the research in this area is on incorporating religious and spiritual variables in practitioner education (Kelly Jr., 1994); or the need for practitioners to develop competencies to work with religious and spiritual issues in counselling (Pate Jr. & High, 1995); highlighting the benefits to clients. The conclusion from most research in this area highlights the fact that despite the importance of religion/spirituality in most clients' lives, practitioners are not given adequate training to prepare them to deal with issues arising in these realms (Delaney, et al, 2007;Shafranske & Malony, 1990).…”