Rev. Dr. J. Eric Skidmore
State Police Chaplain (South Carolina)
If you asked Eric Skidmore what his work in ministry would look like 30 years after finishing seminary, he never would have pictured where he is today. Trained in very traditional M.Div./D.Min. programs which prepared him for pastoral ministry in a church setting, he took a call to the staff of the Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC.
Seven years later, the Chief of the State Law Enforcement Division asked Skidmore to consider something new. Funded under a federal grant, Skidmore became the Program Manager & State Police Chaplain for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Assistance Program.
Twenty-three years later, the program is completely funded by the five state agencies who form the SCLEAP partnership.
With a full-time staff of three chaplains and one peer support coordinator, the SCLEAP/Chaplaincy serves officers and staff in four state police agencies and the personnel of the Office of the Adjutant General. They also serve officers in 260+ local law enforcement agencies upon request.
Skidmore often likens this chaplaincy to the hub of a wheel with spokes going out from the center. At the center of the hub is the chaplaincy staff and affiliated mental health professionals as well as volunteer chaplains and a very large peer support team.
Several of the spokes represent traditional chaplaincy service such as pastoral care, weddings, funerals, public prayers, chaplaincy training, etc. The other spokes represent the functions the chaplaincy shares with mental health professionals and peer support personnel. These include critical incident training and interventions, post critical incident seminars, traumatic loss seminars and post deployment seminars.
Other ministry functions include addictions work, suicide intervention, post deployment issues, marriage and family care, referral for clinical care and research with the Medical University of SC.
The chaplaincy even manages a Law Enforcement Retreat House in the mountains of Western North Carolina. It was given to them as a gift in order to provide a special form of care to the law enforcement community in South Carolina.
Skidmore loves his work as a Public Safety Chaplain. He prays that many more chaplains will consider entry into this unique and vital ministry.
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