Delivering Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Remotely: Educators’ Views and Perspectives During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

Many Clinical Pastoral Education programs pivoted to remote delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our survey explored educators’ preparedness, self-efficacy, and views regarding remote Clinical Pastoral Education. Few respondents were either very (14.2%) or not at all (16.5%) prepared. Most were confident facilitating remote learning (69.8%–88.5%), believing remote Clinical Pastoral Education can achieve outcomes equivalent to in-person (59.1%). Six qualitative themes emerged: educator development, educator challenges, remote Clinical Pastoral Education efficacy, remote group dynamics, clinical practice/supervision implications, and benefits and opportunities.

COVID-19 and Clinical Pastoral Education: How ACPE Educators Pivoted Amid the Pandemic

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programs faced extraordinary challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined how ACPE-certified educators responded to maintain program delivery. Survey results (n = 210) suggested a substantial and abrupt increase in remote delivery for CPE instruction and supervised clinical practice, primarily driven by those previously fully in-person. Respondents reported abrupt changes impacted 1152 students. Participants rated their utilization and helpfulness of professional, organizational, and technology resources during the pivot and beyond.

An Innovative Approach for Integrating Mandatory, Longitudinal Spirituality Training Into the Medical School Curriculum

PROBLEM

Most Americans indicate they are religious and/or spiritual and wish to have their beliefs taken into account when engaging with health care providers, yet gaps in medical education and health care practice remain. To underscore the importance of spirituality as a significant social determinant of health, a team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York developed mandatory spirituality and health training for students integrated into all 4 years of the undergraduate medical education curriculum.

APPROACH

From 2014 to 2020, a small group of faculty took an innovative approach, launching the initiative and expanding the team by engaging interprofessional faculty and staff from across the institution. The team used an iterative process to integrate 4 distinct modules into 4 existing courses, spanning the 4 years of medical school.

OUTCOMES

The majority of students found that the spirituality and health curriculum was valuable to training and professional development. They appreciated the importance of patients' spiritual needs, valued learning about the role chaplains play in patient care and how to initiate a consult, and indicated they intended to integrate spiritual history taking in their patient care. With respect to process, 3 key factors-establishing an interprofessional team, working through an iterative process, and integrating the curriculum into existing courses-were critical to designing and implementing the modules.

NEXT STEPS

The team aims to expand and improve the curriculum by linking learning to specific standardized competencies as well as developing more specific performance assessments to demonstrate achievement of competencies. Professional development efforts will be enhanced so faculty can better model and reinforce the integration of spirituality into health care practices and expand the curriculum on spirituality and health into graduate medical education.

CPE for leaders: Adapting Clinical Pastoral Education's learning methodology for healthcare managers and directors

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), a training program for spiritual care providers, was adapted to meet the leadership development needs of a group of six healthcare managers. A focus group was conducted with the six participants to learn more about the program and its effects. Using thematic analysis, transcripts of the focus group were analyzed and seven themes were identified. Participants reported that the program facilitated trust and honesty, helped them connect to their emotions, and helped them respond to system-wide changes at work; that learning was facilitated by their connections with their peers in the group and with the facilitator; and that senior leaders' support for the program was key. They also reported that the name and course description were initially unclear and they wanted a follow-up program. This paper describes the program, presents these themes, and places CPE for Leaders in the context of other leadership models.

Ethics education in clinical pastoral education: prevalence and types

Chaplains frequently serve on ethics committees, as ethics consultants, and as Institutional Review Board (IRB) members in hospitals. However, little is known about how Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) residents are trained in ethics and whether this training is appropriate or adequate for chaplains' subsequent work in health care settings. We created a survey to canvas 222 CPE residency programs in the United States accredited by the ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care (ACPE) to inquire about the prevalence of ethics curricula within residency programs, the educational structure of ethics curricula, and challenges associated with teaching ethics within CPE. We received a total of 84 responses for a 38% response rate. Of these, three-quarters of the programs had a required ethics curriculum, another 10% were in the process of developing one, and 18% had none. There was a great deal of variability in the ethics curricula among the different programs. Developing guidelines for a standardized ethics curriculum could help healthcare chaplains provide more effective service on ethics committees, as ethics consultants, and as IRB members.

Online clinical pastoral education needs more research

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programs to cancel or move online. There is no research about online CPE, and it is unknown how effective it is compared with in-person CPE. Researchers in other related fields have studied online clinical supervision, specifically how technology-assisted supervision affects the supervisory relationship, the development of supervisees' competence and confidence, supervisees' satisfaction, and the overall quality of clinical supervision. This paper presents a review of the scientific evidence about online clinical supervision. It is generally agreed that online clinical supervision is a viable alternative to in-person supervision. More research about online CPE is needed to develop best practices and new accreditation standards that enable CPE supervisors to practice online CPE at the highest level, whether in a pandemic or not.