The Association of Professional Chaplains announces the following additions and changes to the APC Board of Directors, effective November 1, 2014.

Joining the board as directors this year are Jeffery Garland BCC and Jeffery Murphy BCC.

Rev. Dr. Jeffery T. Garland DMin EdS BCC has been an active member with APC since 1997 and became a board certified chaplain in 2002. He is employed as a chaplain with the Barnabas Health Hospice and Palliative Care Center in West Orange, NJ. Endorsed by The American Baptist Churches, USA, Garland is the assistant to the pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Newark, NJ. He received his doctorate of ministry from Drew University School of Theology, his master of divinity from New York Theological Seminary and his education specialist in marriage and family therapy degree from Seton Hall University. He has served APC in the roles of Membership Services Council member, Multi-Cultural Multi-Ethnic Committee Chair, APC Conference Planning Committee Spiritual Needs chair and Nominating Committee member.

Rev. Jeffery N. Murphy MDiv BCC has been a board certified chaplain since 1993. He has served as a staff chaplain at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS since 2003. Endorsed by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), he holds a bachelor of arts from William Carey College and a master of divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Before joining the board, Murphy served APC as state representative for Mississippi, the national coordinator of state representatives and BCCI certification chair for Area 8. He was also the founding president of the Mississippi Chaplains Association.

The officers this year are

• President Darryl I. Owens BCC
• President-elect Mary-Margaret (Margie) Atkinson BCC
• Treasurer Rev. Kimberly Murman BCC
• Secretary Martha H. Rucker BCC
• BCCI Representative Joe Perez BCC

Also serving on the board as directors are: Daniel H. Grossoehme BCC, Janet R. McCormack BCC, Floyd G. O'Bryan BCC, Ronald C. Oliver BCC, John Simon BCC, Jana Troutman-Miller BCC, and Ex-officio Member Patricia F. Appelhans JD.  

 

Completing their terms are Valerie R. Storms BCC (president) and Marcia L. Marino BCC (treasurer). We owe them a debt of gratitude for their years of excellent service to APC.

 

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On behalf of the Association of Professional Chaplains, I am thrilled and excited to invite you and your colleagues to attend our 2015 Annual Conference, June 4-7 at the Louisville Marriott Downtown in Louisville, KY.
 
For the past 10 months, the 2015 Conference Planning Committee has been hard at work to put together the conference components. The theme of the conference is "Soul Meets Data: Research and Technology in Chaplaincy Care." Our conference goals are to increase research literacy and knowledge, implement technology into professional practice, inspire chaplains to do research, and investigate how technology connects and disconnects in relationships
 
The committee is excited about the educational opportunities available at the conference, as we have received a record-breaking number of submissions for Professional Development Intensives and 90-minute workshops. We have an impressive lineup of plenary speakers, thoughtful opportunities for spiritual refreshment, a strong selection of workshops and PDIs, and time to build relationships with colleagues (new and old). Our hotel is located in the heart of downtown Louisville, where attendees will be within walking distance of some of the best restaurants and activities the city has to offer.

I encourage you to begin looking over your budgets, and talking to your administrators and managers about the possibility of joining us in exploring the areas of research and technology as they intersect with our work as chaplains. We have a letter on the APC conference website for you to share with your administrators to help explain the value of the conference as well as some cost-saving ideas for conference attendance. Each of us who has attended in the past has seen the benefits of the APC conference: reconnecting with colleagues, learning about cutting-edge research, exploring new ways to support our diverse populations, and finding better methods to prove the quality of our care - just to name a few!  
 
June is still quite a few months away but I am anticipating another fantastic conference together with fellow APC members and professional colleagues in Louisville, KY where we will not only grow as individuals but also as a profession.
 
Mark your calendars; 2015 conference registration opens January 13, 2015.
 
Geila Rajaee serves as the 2015 Annual Conference Planning Committee chair and may be contacted at geila.rajaee@gmail.com.

Can you recall one of your EXTRAORDINARY experiences as a chaplain providing spiritual care? The 2015 APC Annual Conference Spiritual Needs Committee is seeking storytellers from our diverse faith traditions to share YOUR story of an amazing and inspiring pastoral care visit. As a chaplain, you know how healing the telling of our stories can be - for us and for others who hear the stories.
 
Please tell us your story in 500 words or less and send to the APC office at meeting@professionalchaplains.org. The committee will review all the stories submitted and select several chaplains to share their stories during the Multifaith Worship Service at the 2015 APC Annual Conference in Louisville, KY. What you share will nurture, uplift and sustain each of us in our transforming work of chaplaincy care.  
 
In your submission, please give us a brief statement about the context of your chaplaincy work, as well the population you serve, your faith tradition and the faith tradition of the person or persons in your story.  The submission deadline is November 30, 2014. Thank you in advance. We look forward to receiving your inspiring story.

November 11, 2014, APC Webinar Journal Club IV, Session 2, "Chaplain Care for a Man with Parkinson Disease," presented by George Fitchett DMin PhD BCC and Sr. Patricia Murphy PhD BCC.Register by November 3.

November 20, 2014, Effective Chaplain Charting: Communicating with the Care Team, Making Sense to Management and Avoiding Legal Pitfalls, presented by Brent Peery DMin BCC and Greg King JD. Register by November 12.

December 3, 2014, Leading a Family Meeting, presented by David E. Weissman MD. Register by November 25.

January 13, 2015, APC Webinar Journal Club IV, Session 3, Chaplain Care for a Patient and His Family in a UK Hospice, presented by George Fitchett DMin PhD BCC and Sr. Patricia Murphy PhD BCC, Register by January 5, 2015.

January 28, 2015, Chaplaincy from the Beside to the Boardroom, presented by John Simon BCC. Register by January 20, 2015.

March 10, 2015, APC Webibnar Journal Club IV, Session 4, Chaplain Care for a Teen with Spinal Cord Injury. Register by March 2, 2015.

May 12, 2015, APC Webinar Journal Club IV, Session 5, Chaplain Care for a Young Man Who Attempted Suicide. Register by May 4, 2015

I am the National Chair of Commissioners for CCAPS. CCAPS is the COMISS Commission on Accreditation of Pastoral Services, which is the organization for accreditation of pastoral services across the nation. I became involved with CCAPS a few years ago as I journeyed through the process of having our chaplain service accredited by CCAPS.

The paragraphs below offer insight into the value of CCAPS accreditation and are an excerpt from an article by Chaplain Mike Pollitt. The entire article, "Taming the CCAPS Accreditation Monster," can be found on the COMISS website.

"At the end of the rating year, every medical center director lists all of his or her accomplishments at their medical center. Earning accreditation from The Joint Commission is always first on any list, for it is the most prestigious, There are more than a few directors who can also boast of the national accreditation of CCAPS for their chaplain services. Regardless of your type of health care chaplaincy, CCAPS accreditation is well within your reach; it is affordable and can be paid in installments. The different types of chaplaincy accreditation are wide-ranging and include chaplain service programs for long-term care facilities, specialty care facilities, large and small chaplain programs, and the Joint ACPE/CCAPS Accreditation for CPE sites," says Pollitt.

"When I was a supervisory chaplain a few years back and was considering seeking accreditation, the magnitude of the process appeared so daunting that the decision to pursue it was quite difficult. We did decide to go forward, though, because we believed that first, we were a very good chaplaincy and that, second, CCAPS accreditation would only make us better. The latter turned out to be true. Because of CCAPS and its standards of professional chaplaincy, we came to terms with what we were capable of accomplishing as professional health care chaplains," Pollitt concludes.

The story of my own organization achieving CCAPS accredited status was equally enriching for our chaplain service staff, our health system and me. My chaplain staff spoke of the great sense of accomplishment and recognition they found as the word spread around the medical center. Nurses and physicians would come to them and say things like, "We have always appreciated the work of the chaplains but we never knew the level of expertise and professionalism you really bring to our organization." 

CCAPS is an organizational accreditation, and thus the administration saw this as being on par with CARF accreditation for rehabilitation and Magnet accreditation for nursing. Although I would not go through CCAPS solely for the sake of seeking additional staff, I will say that after the CCAPS site visit recommended that an additional chaplain would be beneficial to furthering the work of chaplain service, I was approved to hire one additional full-time chaplain.

What patient care benefits are to be found in CCAPS accreditation? CCAPS will enhance the scope, quality and control of spiritual assessments and spiritual interventions provided to patients and families by ensuring the spiritual aspects of health and wellness are addressed. CCAPS helps ensure the facility is honoring the free exercise right of a patient's religious values. CCAPS also ensures that patients are provided spiritual/pastoral care by persons who meet the professional chaplain qualification standards. Furthermore, accreditation increases employee and institutional awareness of patient needs for spiritual/pastoral care. Accreditation puts the facility on the leading edge of spiritual/pastoral care within the health care community. CCAPS accreditation demonstrates the facility's commitment to quality holistic care. Finally, CCAPS clarifies and confirms the facility is compliant with all Joint Commission standards.

Routledge Journals is pleased to offer free access to a collection of articles on the topic of military chaplaincy from Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, official journal of APC. (APC members always receive access to the journal as part of their membership.) Open access to the article collection is available to until December 31st, 2014. Everyone is invited to download, read, share and cite this research today.

This question is at the heart of professional chaplaincy as we strive to incorporate more research and technology into our professional practice. The struggle is to remain high-touch, while becoming more hi-tech.

The plenary speakers for the APC 2015 Annual Conference will explore these issues as they address the conference theme, "Soul Meets Data: The Research and Technology of Chaplaincy Care."

Dr. Tammie Quest MD, a palliative care physician-researcher, will open up the conference by challenging us to be both high-touch and highly effective as we consider the future role of chaplains in the care management of the seriously ill. She will describe current and future models of palliative and supportive care with a focus on population-based management; identify key metrics and drivers of quality outcomes in health care for seriously ill patients, with a focus on the role of the chaplain; and describe key roles and adaptations chaplains should prepare for in future models of care.

Dr. George Fitchett PhD BCC, a leading chaplain-researcher, will discuss how our profession is becoming more evidence-based and why that is important. He will review what evidence-based care is and is not, and will examine the case for and against it. He will illustrate how different types of research can inform chaplaincy practice and discuss the implications of this paradigm change for the profession of health care chaplaincy.

Dr. Angelo Volandes MD MPH is the co-founder and president of ACP Decisions, an organization that uses technology, including innovative video tools, to facilitate end-of-life conversations. He will share his radical vision of the patient-clinician relationship and discuss how chaplains may use technology to facilitate better end-of-life decision making.

Dr. Meredith Gould PhD, a sociologist, social media expert and author of The Social Media Gospel, will close out the conference by focusing on how digital tools make it possible to establish and sustain essential connections for providing care.

Rev. David Fleenor BCC,serves on the 2015 Conference Planning Committee as the Plenary Speakers chair. He is senior director, Chaplaincy Services & Clinical Education, at HealthCare Chaplaincy Network in New York, NY, and may be contacted at dfleenor@healthcarechaplaincy.org.

As a thank you to all those who pay their APC dues by November 30, 2014, APC will send a promotion code for $55 off an APC Professional Chaplaincy Webinar Recording of their choice (not a live webinar.). Regular webinar recordings cost $55 for members, so this promo code will give you a free recording.

Promo codes will be e-mailed to qualifying members by January 1, 2015. The code may also be used toward Webinar Journal Club recordings and the 2014 Chaplain Symposium recording set.

As a reminder, APC offers online invoicing and payment of APC membership dues and BCCI Maintenance of Certification Fees. To access and pay your invoice(s), log into the APC website and, from your Profile page, click the "My Invoices" menu option. Whether you pay online or by mail, you can print a receipt of payment from "My Invoices." Once your payment has been processed, your invoice will show a zero balance due. (Payment by mail may take up to 10 business days to process due to high volume at this time of year.)

For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. For those working in the health care sector, including clinicians, chaplains, caregivers and support staff, providing high-quality care for people who are nearing the end of life is a matter of professional commitment and responsibility. Health sys­tem managers, payers and policy makers, likewise, have a responsibility to ensure that end-of-life care is compassionate, affordable, sustainable, and of the best quality possible.

A substantial body of evidence shows that broad improvements to end-of-life care are within reach. In Dying in America, a consensus report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a committee of experts finds that improving the quality and availability of medical and social services for patients and their families could not only enhance quality of life through the end of life, but may also contribute to a more sustainable care system.

Released last month, the report is available for download from the the Institute of Medicine, Dying in America: Improving quality and honoring individual preferences near the end of life.

by Denise Ryder BCC 

 

I have published articles and poems in the past and am looking forward to my new endeavor. I am in the process of writing a book called "Holy Moments." It is a collection of stories and observations, written mostly by clergy, about moments when the presence of God is manifest to the alert witness.

 

I am interested in offering the opportunity for additional contributions to this work. I am interested in stories about all faiths and beliefs, as I want this to speak to whoever reads it. If it speaks to you then it will speak to someone else too, so feel free to stretch your wings. Please change names for identity protection and include your name if you want credit.

 

If your submission is selected for inclusion, additional paperwork will be sent for signatures. Remuneration is unclear at this time. But, credits will be given for your submission. You will be notified if your submission is declined, as well.

 

Please understand I am not limiting this to the traditional "light at the end of the tunnel" types of experiences. This is about all moments that God's presence was unmistakably felt.  

 

Depending on the stories submitted I hope to group them in some content fashion. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Blessings to you all.

 

Please contact Denise Ryder DMin BCC at holymoments@earthlink.net  for submission of stories. For general questions, please e-mail deniseryder@earthlink.net.

 

Rev. Denise Ryder DMin BCC is a chaplain at Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, IN. BCCI board certified, Ryder is also a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed clinical addictions counselor. She is a member of the American Red Cross Spiritual Care Task Force and the American Red Cross Disaster Spiritual Care Team.  

 

A resource for sharing the experience of loss and grief, a story we all will come to know eventually
Eventually, each of us will experience loss through the death of a loved one. Eventually, each of us will need to grieve this loss. Eventually, each of us may walk through the valley of bereavement with a family member or friend.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I sought to provide a space for individuals who were coming to terms with the meaning of significant loss in their lives and who wished to honor the memory of loved ones. My hope was to provide an online tool for those coping with bereavement, to explore common threads in the grieving process and to offer catharsis to the survivors.

Eventually (http://eventually.be), it is a collection of first-person video testimonials in which participants reflect upon their own experiences, recount events leading up to and surrounding the death of family members or loved ones, talk about how they have coped, and explore what the loss has meant to them. The stories are deeply personal, yet in them one discovers common threads in the grieving process.

Those who have participated in Eventually thus far have found the experience very positive for several reasons: They recognize their stories may be of help to others; they wish to commemorate the person who died; and they feel the opportunity to talk freely and deeply on camera about their experiences marks a significant step in the healing process.

My approach is to have a conversation with participants either in person or by phone prior to filming. This helps to establish trust and familiarity, which helps them to feel more comfortable sharing their story with me and, ultimately, on camera. The taping session is quite informal with an emphasis on providing a supportive and caring space to safely explore thoughts and feelings. I let each person talk for as long as needed and edit to a running time of approximately 10 minutes.

The website itself was created with simplicity in mind. The design is intentionally clean and minimal to convey respectfulness and includes a "quiet" section for contemplation. Commenting and advertising are purposefully disabled. Videos will remain on the site indefinitely, and will be cataloged and searchable using relationship titles, e.g., father, mother, as well as circumstance, e.g., cancer, heart disease.    

My goal is for Eventually to become known through bereavement organizations, online grief groups and other forums, as well as by word of mouth and to be easily accessible to any who may find its content helpful. The project is independent and, so far, self-funded.

Joanne Colan is a British broadcast/digital media journalist and independent content creator, living and working in New York City. For additional information, or to contribute a story, please contact joanne@factoryfloor.us.

Despite my lack of Trekkie street cred, Roddenberry's stance was interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, I have a strong suspicion that anyone who's been a chaplain for more than, say, four minutes has at some point encountered similar antagonism to the mere fact of their existence. I'm guessing this applies in all realms of chaplaincy, but since I know the most about chaplaincy in the hospital setting, I'll use that arena to illustrate what I mean.

Many hospital chaplains will have run into a doctor who felt that they were "in the way" or even that they were undermining patient care or challenging the doctor's authority. Or maybe you've had an experience in which a patient became enraged at a gentle offer to pray with them. For example, I remember my boss at the Duke University Medical Center coming into my office wide-eyed with shock after having a patient's family scream at her in the hallway. "You come in here with your soft voice and your little prayers! What good is that? She's in pain! She's dying! You're useless!" (Side note, after the woman died, the family actually sought out my boss to thank her for putting up with them, and for finding snacks and tissues for them).

Sometimes such antagonism is born out of the anger and fear that surrounds a trauma or a death. Other times, though, it comes from a sort of cognitive dissonance. Hospitals are supposed to be shimmering bubbles of modernity -- the best that modern medical science has to offer. They're about stuffing people full of precisely engineered, molecularly-targeted drugs and doing things to them that involve really big, fancy words. Words like stereotactic laser-assisted surgery and autologous mesenchymal stem cell infusions. To some people, suggesting a simple act like offering a prayer to a higher power might be as welcome in such a setting as offering to bring out the leeches and bloodletting tools.

For others, it's not about the setting; they just can't get on board with the idea of religion at all. I write novels about a hospital chaplain in a small North Carolina town. In my first book, I included a scene where a patient's wife tells the chaplain that she doesn't need the chaplain's help because she isn't "superstitious." BURN! Like most of my best lines and plot elements, that was based on a true event. In that real-life situation, I felt that that word was carefully chosen to be extra insulting. Not just "not religious," "not a Christian/Muslim/Jew/etc.," or "not spiritual." Such people might've had a bad experience in the past with someone trying to foist their own beliefs onto others. They may lash out because they feel threatened and might simply not understand that chaplains are not evangelists.

Roddenberry's anti-chaplain stance also spoke to me as someone who falls on the humanist end of the Unitarian Universalist belief spectrum. I, too, have sometimes wished that we little homo sapiens could move beyond a certain kind of religious expression. It's hard to learn about yet another zealot overseas beheading an innocent person or a rigid religionist in our own country passing discriminatory laws based on narrow interpretations of their personal faith without wishing that there was "nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too."

But Roddenberry fundamentally misunderstood the role of a chaplain, and indeed the role of religion in our lives. I agree that in Star Trek's science-driven, cosmopolitan future world, it would make sense that some aspects of religious turmoil and even perhaps facets of religious belief would naturally fall away. Let's sincerely hope we're done beheading each other in the name of religion by then. But Captain Kirk and his shipmates are still humans. They still live and die, become angry and jealous, confront the unknown, and, most importantly, confront the unknowable. As long as there are humans, there will be a need for those who can help them understand what it means to be human. And that's why chaplains will be needed every bit as much in Star Date 2364 as they are today.

Mindy Quigley is a freelance writer and university administrator who lives with her husband and daughter in Blacksburg, VA. Her best-selling Reverend Lindsay Harding Murder Mystery series is based on her time working in the Pastoral Services Department at Duke University Hospital. She may be contacted at mindy.a.quigley@gmail.com.

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What do you do when your last Supervisor is gone?
by William Killian BCC

I had four Chaplain Supervisors
in my training to become a hospital chaplain -
Jack Shepard, Harold Nelson, Charles Sullivan, Frank Moyer.
These four men helped me define selfhood in ministry.

Last Wednesday, July 30, 2014,
two days after his 84th birthday,
Frank Moyer died.

What do you do when your last Supervisor is gone?

Strange, is this death, I feel a birth emerging.
Between the years of 1964 - 1970,
I participated in three years of Clinical Pastoral Education
as I worked in hospital chaplaincy and pastoral ministry.
Without that CPE, I could not have continued in the ministry.

With Frank Moyer's death
I feel sprung out on my own,
thrust into a wide-open field of ministerial retirement.
I still work part time, but I have retired.

I served my first student church in 1960 -
I was able to answer all the questions the parishioners asked.
My answers were more important than their questions.
That was 1960.
Before that decade ended, I had a new suit of clothes.
I looked at the world with different eyes,
and over four decades later
I still have a love affair with questions.

What do you do when your last Supervisor is gone?
You embrace the gratitude that fills your life.
Thank you, Jack, for your Boston-trained, Bateson-drenched
stubborn tenacity, for your wisdom that stretched over the years.
Thank you, Harold, for your family systems training,
for my introduction to Ross, Satir, Minuchin, Bowen,
for your in-depth spiritual focus and your twosome pastoral visits.
Thank you, Charlie, and your colleague, Bob Baylor,
for your distant immersion into pastoral psychology,
for your allowing me to work in the back wards
of a state mental hospital, for including me
in a large team of young chaplains in search of themselves.
And thank you, Frank, for enabling me to stand up for myself,
for teaching me how to be a man, how to fight, to conquer,
and get on with my life. I'll never forget the day I quit CPE -
all you said was, "...can you work as a staff chaplain
till the end of the year?" You knew, I knew by then,
that being a CPE Supervisor was not in the cards for me.
You asked me to stay on, be a chaplain, be my chaplain.

That's what you do when your last Supervisor is gone -
you be a chaplain, you do ministry, and then you retire.
You tell your story to those who will listen,
and you reach back over the years, through the tears,
and say Thank you.

Bill,
 
Thank you for your poem in the ACPE news. Frank Moyer was on my certification committee in Washington, DC in 1986. He kicked my butt, gave me some great advice and then voted to certify me.
 
Then there was John J. Shepard - known to us by Jack. He was my first CPE supervisor. I tell this story about Jack:
 
I was 27 years old and fresh out of seminary in 1976. During my admissions interview, Jack puffed on his pipe and listened to all the reasons why he should accept me in CPE. I was trying to impress him. My father had died the year before. I couldn't find a job. On the outside - I had all the makings of a "nice pastor." But on the inside, I was a hurting, hostile SOB, even though I couldn't admit it.
 
We were in Jack's office at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus for this interview.  After 15 or 20 minutes of my BSing he looked at me, took a puff on his pipe and said, "Son, you sound lost."

"I do?"

"Yes you do," he said. "You're  so lost you can't find your own a**."  
 
I broke out into laughter for about five seconds and then began weeping. I wept for at least 10 minutes and Jack just sat there in silence (pastoral presence). I had just spent 20 minutes with a man I never met and he named for me what I could not name for myself - my own inner pain. His naming of my pain was refreshing. It helped set me free. He spoke the truth to me like no one had ever done before.  
 
"I'll take you in CPE," he said, "not because you have all the answers, but because you're looking for a place to belong. You'll make a good chaplain someday, but for now you have to work on your pain, and CPE is the place to start."

Then he introduced me to Chaplain Carver Williams, who gave me a tour of the hospital, and I was on my way (a long journey) to becoming a CPE supervisor.
 
I am now 66 and nearing retirement. I have never forgotten that day in Jack's office -- when the search for myself began. Thanks to Jack, I can now find my a**.
 
John Valentino MDiv MS, ACPE supervisor
Presbyterian Healthcare Services
Albuquerque, NM
Wvalentin@phs.org