What a Chaplain Looks Like

Carrie Walker Nettles earned a BA in Sociology from Clemson University and an M.Div. from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. Carrie has worked with the children’s ministries of several churches and as a child advocate with the Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center in Charleston, SC. She traveled to General Theological Seminary to study with Jerome Berryman, creator of Godly Play, developing a theology of the child. She completed her clinical pastoral education residency with the Spiritual Care department at Greenville Memorial Hospital where she worked across many units with a focus on the pediatric hospital and the pediatric mental health units. She is board-certified through the Association of Professional Chaplains, and she is a member of the Pediatric Chaplains Network. In December of 2016, Carrie became the first staff chaplain serving a Child Advocacy Center in the United States. Working directly with children, their caregivers, or adult survivors of sexual abuse, Carrie holds space for the existential crisis and spiritual injuries of clients. Utilizing play, creativity, stories, conversation, illustrated children’s books, or reframed religious rituals to assist her clients’ healing, Carrie’s philosophy of spiritual care is rooted in empowerment, choice, and reconnection to voice for the clients themselves. She has presented numerous times to nationwide gatherings of child protection professionals on the spiritual needs of the child and to clergy gatherings on child protection, trauma-sensitive pastoral care, and the insidious nature of religious predators. Together, she and her spouse, Mason, parent a teen and a young adult.