Mapping Muslim Chaplaincy project issues report

The collaborative project to map Muslim chaplaincy, featured among Innovation Lab project leaders, has issued a report on its findings. You can read “Mapping Muslim Chaplaincy: Educational and Needs Assessment” here.

This is an exciting project that makes a significant contribution to this field of spiritual care. We reproduce here a small section of the report that describes why it is so necessary:

Chaplaincy is still a relatively new form of professional religious leadership in American Muslim communities. A national understanding is absent of how many, where, and in what capacities Muslim chaplains work and how students trained in Muslim chaplaincy programs are serving. The Islamic Society of North America provides institutional endorsement for Muslim chaplains, and Muslim chaplains have regional organizations in California and Connecticut. Community or staff volunteers, however, often perform chaplaincy functions when no trained Muslim chaplain is available.Based on a national survey and focus group of Muslim chaplains across sectors and qualitative interviews, the Muslim chaplaincy project will analyze multiple pathways to chaplaincy, educational preparation and certification, placement, and ongoing 6 professional needs of Muslim chaplains, as well as their relationship to local and trans-local Muslim and interfaith communities. The current report presents the findings of the national survey, the first of its kind in the United States.