Training Healthcare Chaplains: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Abstract

This article invites theological school educators, clinical pastoral education educators, representatives of the professional healthcare chaplaincy organizations, and social scientists to begin a shared conversation about chaplaincy education. To date, we find that theological educators, clinical educators, professional chaplains, and the healthcare organizations where they work are not operating from or educating toward a common understanding of what makes healthcare chaplains effective. Before we identify five key questions that might help us be in shared conversation and move towards educating the most effective chaplains, we briefly describe the history of education for healthcare chaplaincy. We then describe what we learned in interviews in 2018 with 21 theological and 19 clinical educators who are educating healthcare chaplains in theological schools and clinical pastoral education residency programs, year-long educational programs in hospitals and other settings that focus on preparing people for staff chaplain jobs. Their different approaches and frames inform the five questions with which we conclude.

Training Chaplains and Spiritual Caregivers: The Emergence and Growth of Chaplaincy Programs in Theological Education

“…How can the educators rethink and align their training and approaches to meet the needs of the people spiritual caregivers serve? We suggest an approach to these conversations in another article (Cadge et al 2019) and further suggest that key questions in this conversation include what individuals need to know to be good chaplains, which institutions help prepare them for that work, and how theological educators and clinical educators can work alongside one another in ongoing conversation and partnership. We see some models for such an approach in theological schools directly connected to CPE centers and encourage even broader national conversation among these sites to share best practices and help to standardize and professionalize the training of chaplains.…”

“We Need to Learn from What we Have Learned!”: The Possible Impact of Covid-19 on the Education and Training of Chaplains

“…The education of chaplains who work in the health sector varies across the globe and between organisations within countries and regions with some being theologically based while others are more health based and some combine elements of both (Cadge et al., 2019). While some education programs include caring for people in crisis situations (Martens, 2004), it is unlikely that many of the participants in the recent international survey of chaplains and spiritual care workers would have received such training.…”

HAVE-H: Five Attitudes for a Narratively Grounded and Embodied Spirituality

“…Yet on the other hand, they must remain faithful to the religious or spiritual backgrounds that inform their work. For many such professionals, this liminality creates a dilemma (Cadge, 2012; Cadge et al., 2019). Are they religious individuals serving a religious or quasi-religious function in secular environments?…”

“…This dilemma is increased by the reality that many professional SCPs are trained in seminaries or other traditional religious training programs prior to undertaking their spiritual care (SC) training in clinical pastoral education (CPE) (Cadge et al., 2019; Canadian Association for Spiritual Care/Association canadienne de soins spirituelle, 2019; Ragsdale, 2018). In many cases, the institutions providing this prior training offer counseling or psychotherapy degrees.…”

“…In the first case, those with counseling degrees could ask what CPE adds to their training, other than offering exposure in different clinical settings and a reflective process for building self-awareness. In the second case, those with traditional divinity degrees could ask whether CPE by itself gives them adequate formation in specific therapeutic modalities and other clinical competencies to meet the high demands of their workplaces (Cadge et al., 2019; Ragsdale, 2018). True, CPE attempts to balance personal formation with didactic training in clinical competencies (Cadge et al., 2019; Ragsdale, 2018).…”