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The National Association of Catholic Chaplains Distinguished Service Award recognizes outstanding dedication and service to the National Association of Catholic Chaplains or to the field of chaplaincy by a member of the NACC. The award will be presented to an individual who has advanced the mission of NACC or the ministry of chaplaincy in a significant and lasting way.
Downloadable (MS Word) nomination form
The National Association of Catholic Chaplains Outstanding Colleague Award recognizes outstanding dedication and service of a professional colleague in a field other than professional chaplaincy. The award will be presented to an individual or to a group whose work has proven complementary to, supportive of, or otherwise has contributed to the advancement of the profession of chaplaincy in a significant and lasting way.
Downloadable (MS Word) nomination form
Chaplain Timothy G. Serban, M.A., BBC, has been named the Distinguished Service Award recipient. Tim has been our NACC liaison to the Red Cross for many years, advanced the profession both on his local level and national, and has supported our NACC work for many years. Thank you, Tim!
Rev. Gerard T. Broccolo, STD, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago for more than 45 years. During the first half of his career, he quickly rose to national prominence in the areas of spirituality, ministry formation and liturgy. Since 1991, he has worked extensively in Catholic health care, particularly with Catholic Health Initiatives from which he retired in 2006, earning a national reputation for expertise in the integration of spirituality into the workplace and into the delivery of person-centered care.
Sr. Colette Hanlon, SC, M.E.D., M.A., BCC, is currently serving as a part-time chaplain at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. As a Board Certified Chaplain Advanced, Sr. Colette has offered nearly 30 years of service to the NACC and to the certification and professional growth of its members as an interviewer, an Interview Team Educator (ITE), and a mentor as well as being a regular contributor to Vision. She has demonstrated leadership, creativity, and compassion in her ministry on local, regional, and national levels. With the Distinguished Service Award, the NACC recognizes outstanding dedication and service to advancing the mission of NACC and the ministry of chaplaincy in a significant and lasting way. She embodies the best of what Catholic chaplains are about.
Among her many local contributions to the advancement of a variety of professional education and growth opportunities, Sr. Colette created a clinical pastoral ministry program for Catholic laity and area clergy in Wisconsin and chaired the National Association of Religious Leaders in Tennessee. As Director of Pastoral Care at the Hospital of St. Raphael in Connecticut, Sr. Colette developed models for diagnosis, intervention, and patient-outcomes that facilitated growth and respect for chaplains as part of the multidisciplinary team. She also started a speakers’ bureau of her staff, regardless of faith background, to go to local churches to speak on topics of prayer, spirituality, aging gracefully, moving through grief, and many other subjects.
Regionally and nationally, Sr. Colette has contributed to the chaplaincy profession through training videos, pilot studies, research grants, and national presentations. She has been a prolific writer contributing to the Sacred Journey, an online and printed journal, as well as national newspapers including the National Catholic Reporter.
Her ministry has been committed to establishing and nurturing life-giving relationships, ranging from representing the NACC at a national ‘think tank’ on the future of pastoral care to traveling 100 miles to share the Eucharist and talk over end-of-life concerns with a life-long friend. Those who nominated her remarked about her qualities of discipleship, integrity, compassion, stewardship, professionalism, dynamism, humor, and the ability to bring lightness and joy into often tense and sorrowful situations.
Sr. Colette ministers with confidence acquired through years of experience combined with her innate gifts and wisdom. Her humble heart is rooted in Christ and through that place of faith she treats all with the love and respect due to them as a child of God. As one nominator noted, Sr. Colette is a true daughter of Mother Elizabeth Seton following the motto “The Charity of Christ Urges Us.” She is a gift to the NACC and the profession of chaplaincy.
Christina Puchalski, M.S., M.D., is the Executive Director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, Washington, DC, and a Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences at the George Washington University School of Medicine. As one of our plenary speakers for our 2011 annual conference, Dr. Puchalski honors us two-fold, speaking from her professional wisdom and scholarship in the field of integrating spiritual care across health disciplines, as well as sharing her leadership and advocacy for the role of spirituality in healthcare and the end of life. With the Outstanding Colleague Award, the NACC recognizes an individual or a group whose work has proven complementary to, supportive of, or otherwise has contributed to the advancement of the profession of chaplaincy in a significant and lasting way.
The NACC particularly recognizes Dr. Puchalski for her pioneering research and education in spirituality and medicine. Her spirituality curriculum at the George Washington University was one of the first in the country. She is noted for her commitment to the pastoral application of her research and insights. Most professionals in the field of spiritual care, and many healthcare providers across disciplines, from physicians to nurses, have for more than a decade been introduced to and utilized her FICA model of spiritual assessment: faith or beliefs, importance and influence, community, and address or application. While she promotes the importance and benefits of every clinician being able to learn this spiritual history, she also recognizes and advocates for the referral to the expertise of the board certified chaplain whom she views as a critical player on the multidisciplinary care team.
We are grateful for Dr. Puchalski’s many writings and publications in the field. Of particular importance is her most recent publication, Making Healthcare Whole: Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care, which built on the Consensus Conference document, “Improving the Quality of Spiritual Care as a Dimension of Palliative Care,” published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, October 2009 and sponsored by the Archstone Foundation. One of the most promising elements of the Consensus Conference was the process of bringing all the healthcare clinicians, including board certified chaplains, to the table to create consensus on palliative care and the distinctive and complementary roles of those who care for patients at the end of life.
It is with great honor that we award Dr. Christina Puchalski the NACC Outstanding Colleague Award as evidenced by her support of the profession of chaplaincy and her advocacy for the expertise of the board certified chaplain on the multidisciplinary care team.
We are pleased to announce that Mary E. Johnson, MA, BCC and CPE supervisor, will receive the NACC’s 2010 Distinguished Service Award at our 2010 National Conference. Mary has been a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic since 1980, and has devoted many years in service of professional chaplaincy and the NACC.
Mary served on the Certification Commission from 1994 to 2000 and as the Vice Chair of the Commission from 1998 to 2000. She was a site visitor on the USCC Commission on Certification and Accreditation from 1988 to 2000. She trained chaplains as the Coordinator and Supervisor of the NACC accredited CPE Program at Saint Marys Hospital and Mayo Clinic from 1984 to 1997. In 2004 the program honored her with their Educator of the Year Award. Mary was a member of the Universal Standards Task Force representing NACC from 2003 to 2004. Mary serves our profession as a Co-Editor of Clinical Learning Vignettes for The Journal of Supervision and Training in Ministry and is on the Editorial Board, Special Articles Section, for the Journal of Clinical Oncology from 1999 to the present; she is published in more than 10 national journals including Vision. Since 1995 she has delivered 126 invited presentations both nationally and internationally. At Mayo Clinic, Mary represents the profession as an Assistant Professor of Oncology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and as a faculty member in the Mayo Medical School for the following programs: Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, Continuing Medical Education, Palliative Medicine, Wellness Orientation, Sexual Medicine, Bioethics, Medicine and Spirituality, Convocation of Thanks, and Continuing Nursing Education. In 2001 the Mayo School of Health Sciences granted her their Faculty Service Award. Employed at the Mayo Clinic since 1980, Mary has been the Coordinator of Education for the Department of Chaplain Services since 1997, and the principal investigator of four research studies in spirituality and a co-investigator of seven others.
We are also pleased to announce that Sister Kay L. Sheskaitis, I.H.M, the executive director of United States Catholic Conference of Bishops Commission on Certification and Accreditation (USCCB/CCA), will receive NACC's 2010 Outstanding Colleague Award at our 2010 National Conference. Sister Kay became executive director of the USCCB/CCA in 1991, and has guided the Commission’s efforts through remarkable years.
As ministry in the Church has grown and evolved, Sister Kay has directed the efforts to ensure the establishment of high quality professional certification standards, policies, procedures for the NACC and other professional ministry groups, as well as the accreditation standards, policies, and procedures for the USCCB/CCA accredited CPE programs and ministry formation programs. She deserves this award because of her passion and commitment in her service to the Church, her attentiveness to the training of professionally competent Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord, and her willingness to extend herself to assist dioceses and centers seeking accreditation of their programs.
A strong supporter of excellence and professionalism, Sister Kay is an educator who gives presentations on the role of and the need for accreditation of programs for ministry. She has been especially dedicated to diversity and inclusion of lay people in ministry. An efficient administrator working under budget constraints and limited staff, she is tireless in her service to the Commission and the Church.
Sister Kay has been one of NACC's biggest supporters in our certification endeavors, and continues to challenge and walk beside the NACC in our mission to professionalism and certification. She has also been very helpful to us in strengthening our relationships with the bishops and diverse ministry groups within the Catholic Church. It will be an honor to stand and applaud Sister Kay as our 2010 Outstanding Colleague.