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1. Executive Director's Reflection
2. NACC Education Advisory Panel to hold first meeting
3. NACC Website Task Force meets
4. Summer 2008 Book Club -- Portland, OR
5. We still need a few NACC State Liaisons
6. Last call for nominations for NACC Board of Directors
7. Are you deciding about the 2009 Spiritual Care Collaborative Summit?
8. Healing Tree: A request for prayers
9. Please go to the NACC web-link for info on these local gatherings

NACC’s mission is to advocate “for the profession of spiritual care.” Over the past weeks, I have had phone calls with chaplains, a news reporter, a journal writer, and a couple other association professionals on the topic of current or future trends in the “profession” of spiritual or pastoral care. I am still learning your “profession,” and I have been blessed to receive wisdom from many of you who know the landscape, and see the road ahead. Balancing the “professional” and “ministerial” components of your call is a topic for another reflection. Here I want to focus on the “professional.”

Perhaps more than almost any other ministry, the business environments where chaplains serve have required them to learn and embrace the “professionalization” (for lack of a better term) of the ministry. The NACC Revised Standards 305.1-6 address the professional standards that are required for certification, and certainly for ongoing professional growth.

Here are the areas I highlight regarding current/future trends for professionalization. Please let me know if I am hitting the mark, or if other areas should be emphasized. In the next five years, there will be:

• Increased need for certified chaplains who understand, embrace, and are prepared to be an effective contributor at the center of the spiritual care services of their institution (Standards 305.1, 305.2, 305.3). The two points here are:
  • Higher need due to anticipated retirement of a large number of chaplains, thus an overall recruitment effort; and
  • Chaplains who are savvy about and effective in all the organizational environments in which they minister. Training in key areas of organizational effectiveness is emphasized.
• Greater clarity of and emphasis on spiritual care roles through job descriptions that reflect the impact of spiritual care on advancing the mission of and preserving the institution. Thus the need to:
  • Identify what the chaplain does that no one else does, and
  • Describe the position in language that codes the complexity/importance of the work so that human resources and executives can understand it.
• A more effective, persuasive way to:
• Answer the question “How do we know we are doing it?”
• Show the “value add” of spiritual care by being able to demonstrate its worth through improved methods of measuring its effectiveness.
• Chart activity in a way that aligns with and aids all members of the care team. (Standards 106.9, 305.5)
• A more widely cultivated professional mindset among spiritual care providers (Standard 305) that emphasizes:
• A resolute dedication and ongoing commitment to improving one’s gifts and competency for the sake of the patient/resident/client being served.
• A willingness to “give away” the profession through open discussion and dialogue with, and teaching and mentoring of, other healthcare colleagues to understand what we do and outcomes we expect, rather than trying to hold onto our work under the aura of mystery or out of fear of being misunderstood.
• An attitude that moves from “I am afraid of losing my job” to “I will get better at my job by training and delegating to others what I can in order to stay focused on the key aspects of my work, thus better serving our patients/residents/clients.
• For those who seek it, the availability of more commonly developed, accepted, and utilized:
• Professional career tracks, along with
• Accessible and affordable educational/formational resources within systems and across professional associations aligned with these tracks.
• Improved compensation, based on market-based salary ranges:
• Adjusted to comparable Master level (plus) professionals, and
• Appropriate to the level of influence, decision-making, accountability, and problem-solving the ministry entails.

Let me make one other observation from a professional business perspective. Jean Lambert has said, “We assert our value by measuring our effectiveness.” I would offer for consideration that the first four points made here are, in effect, efforts we need to make, in collaboration with our employers, so that our value and “marketability” as spiritual care providers will be strengthened. Points five and six will, in part, be dependent on what we do to realize the first four. NACC is committed to be working collaboratively with many partners to help our members be prepared for these trends.

How did I do? What needs to be tweaked? Added? Please let me know your thoughts.

Tomorrow, May 13, 2008 the NACC Education Advisory Panel will hold its first conference call. The purpose of this Panel is: review current educational activity; develop a comprehensive educational strategy; and provide ongoing member input and guidance. Panel members include: Kathleen Mary Smith, Robert Barnes, Susan Lied, Jim Buryska, Elizabeth Berne DeGear, Susanne Chawszczewski, and David Lichter. If you have advice to share please contact any of these members, or Susanne Chawszczewski.

Tomorrow, May 13, 2008 the NACC Website Task Force meets. It will review the input provided by members at the NACC 2008 Conference, and move forward in its plans for website revision. Its purpose is to assist the NACC website administrator and other members of the NACC staff in reviewing/assessing current website content and structure, and make recommendations for the future development of the website to the NACC Executive Director and Board. Please send any comments to Phil Paradowski.

Marti Leven is organizing a book club for NACC members in Portland to read The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (See March 2008 Vision for One Book, One Association information). Please join her and other NACC members at 5:00 p.m., First Thursdays of Summer 2008 (June 5, July 3, August 7) at Panera Bread, 4121 NE Halsey Blvd., Portland, OR (Across the street from the Hollywood MAX Transit Center, Off I-84. Resources for the book can also be found on the NACC website. For more information, contact Marti at martileven@comcast.net.

Thanks to those who volunteered to be State Liaisons in response to our last NACC Now request. We now only need reps for the states of Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. Most states recommended members for that role. To view a position description click here. Please email Cindy Bridges if interested in representing that state. Click here for the current list. In the coming weeks we will be e-mailing and organizing those on the list.

This coming Friday, May 16, 2008 is the deadline for nominations to be received for the one member-at-large position. Please consider yourself or another member as an NACC Board member candidate. We seek diversity (age, culture, geographic, chaplain/supervisor, leadership roles), and special skills (finances, marketing/PR, web-based learning, legal). Send your nomination to the Governance Committee in care of the National Office via regular mail, fax (414-483-6712), or email cbridges@nacc.org. For more information about the process, see this page.

You should have gotten a special e-mail announcement with information about the SCC Summit 2009, February 1-4, 2009 in Orlando, Florida. Remember that Sunday, February 1, 2009 the Super Bowl is in Tampa. Early booking of flights to Orlando will keep your airfares more reasonable. For more information, go to the SCC website.

Please continue to keep in prayer Dennis Eldridge (Kathy’s husband for cancer treatment), Jeanne Childs (surgery on May 13), Sr. Nancy Flaig, OSB (chemo treatment for cancer), Sr. Mary Skopal, SSJ (recovering from back surgery), Sr. Mary Anna Euring, OP (bout with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma), and Sr. Alice Smitherman, OSB (recovering from heart surgery).

Our local gathering list is growing. Therefore, we ask you to use our NACC Local events calendar for more information on:

• Worcester, MA: May 19, 2008
• Fresh Meadows, NY: May 20, 2008
• Long Island, NY: May 21, 2008
• Irvine, CA: June 20, 2008
• San Francisco, CA: June 25, 2008
• Omaha, NE: July 17, 2008
• Boston, MA: September 11, 2008
• Portland, OR, September 19-20, 2008
• Alexandria, MN, September 25-26, 2008
• Green Lake, WI, October 26-28, 2008
• St. Louis, MO, November 5, 2008
• Baltimore, MD, November 12, 2008