A Professional Spiritual Care Knowledge Base: Boon or Bane?

Abstract

An Ideal Intervention Paper was initiated in 2005 to consolidate the learnings of clinical pastoral education students. As papers from students, practitioners, and educators were collected over a period of seven years, it became evident that a knowledge base comprised of this work would expedite the professionalization of clinical chaplaincy via provision of second opinions in difficult cases, education of administrators and the public about the nature of chaplaincy work, and baseline data for effectiveness research—to include replication of effective interventions toward designation of evidence based spiritual care best practices. An online 395-sample knowledge base hosted by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education Research Network was amassed, nearly 40 percent of which is the work of experienced practitioners and educators. A pilot effectiveness study of samples failed to produce meaningful results. As an interim measure a content analysis has provided tentative effectiveness ratings until further research can be done.

KEYWORDS:

• chaplaincy
• clinical pastoral education
• knowledge base
• pastoral care
• spiritual care