Chaplaincy leaders publish on training of healthcare chaplains

Multiple leaders in contemporary chaplaincy have published a landmark article on the training of healthcare chaplains in the past, today, and in the future. The full article can be found at the Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling; the abstract is below. Among the co-authors are Wendy Cadge, the Lab’s founder; Trace Haythorn, Lab co-founder; Shelly Rambo, Senior Advisor to the Lab; and George Fitchett, who serves on the Lab’s Advisory Group.

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.