A Theology grant to the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) supported a project to map the institutional landscape of education for healthcare chaplains in the U.S. Researchers found that the number of programs offered within seminaries and divinity schools has risen significantly over the past twenty years, although there is currently a lack of consistency among them in terms of content. The project has resulted in three papers which present the study's findings and pose additional questions for further investigation.
In 2016, the Foundation for ACPE received a $275,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to map the institutional landscape of education for healthcare chaplains in the U.S. ACPE partnered with Wendy Cadge from Brandeis University and George Fitchett from Rush University Medical Center to complete the project. The grant has ended, and we have learned a great deal from the research made possible through the Luce Foundation.
Prior to this work no data was available that described, informed or provided an overview of healthcare chaplaincy education. We targeted healthcare, as it is one the most developed chaplaincy contexts and the most widely used for CPE. We produced three papers from this research, all of which will contribute to strengthening the spiritual care and education guild.
