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1. Executive Director’s Reflection
2. NACC Board to Meet in Milwaukee October 9-10, 2008
3. Reminder Regarding Academic Transcripts for Application for Certification
4. Thank you and we can still use more photos!
5. Thank you regarding the value of chaplaincy in a nursing home
6. For Vision: Seeing God in the everyday
7. What is the Profile of NACC members?
8. Successful Portland, Oregon NACC event!
9. North Central Prairie Chaplains meet for continuing education
10. Please note the many local gatherings in October!
11. See more detail on November NACC local gatherings in St. Louis and Baltimore!
12. Healing Tree: a request for prayers
13. Recent job postings

This coming weekend many of our NACC members will be going through their certification interviews in several select sites throughout the country. This certification process is at the core of the NACC Mission. We appreciate all our NACC members who have volunteered their time to be interviewers, Interview Team Educators (ITE’s), and site coordinators.

As you know, the newly revised NACC standards were approved last November (2007) by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Commission on Certification and Accreditation (USCCB/CCA), and are now being implemented. You can access these certification standards and the accompanying Certification and Ethics Procedures Manuals on the NACC website. As you well know, every member seeking certification and every certified chaplain seeking renewal of certification will need to demonstrate their competencies in these standards. We want to call your attention particularly to those standards that relate to organizational leadership, professional relationships, and ethics. Preparing oneself to demonstrate competencies in these standards will require a special effort for many of us. In the coming months we look to identify the types of competencies needed to meet these standards and programs that will help you prepare yourself in these areas. Mary Lou O’Gorman, our NACC member who is on the NACC Standards Commission and is the NACC Liaison to the USCCB/CCA, has isolated these standards to help us view them as whole. They are:

302.4 Incorporate a working knowledge of ethics appropriate to the pastoral context.
302.41 Demonstrate an understanding of The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.
302.5 Articulate a conceptual understanding of group dynamics and organizational behavior.
305.1 Promote the integration of Pastoral/Spiritual Care into the life and service of the institution in which it resides.
305.2 Establish and maintain professional and interdisciplinary relationships.
305.21 Demonstrate the ability to build peer relationships for the purpose of collaboration and active participation in the creation and maintenance of a healthy work environment.
305.3 Articulate an understanding of institutional culture and systems, and systemic relationships.
305.4 Support, promote, and encourage ethical decision-making and care.
305.41 Demonstrate skill in facilitating decision-making based on an understanding of culture/ethnicity, gender, race, age, educational background and theological values, religious heritage, behavioral sciences, networking, and systems thinking.

The NACC Board of Directors will be convening in Milwaukee, Friday-Saturday, October 9-10, 2008. The Board meets face-to-face only twice a year, once at the National Conference. Please remember their deliberations in your prayer as they lead the NACC in its strategic plan implementation. Become acquainted with your board members.

For those applying for certification with the NACC, it is important to note the procedures for submission of academic transcripts. These procedures can be found in the Certification Procedures Manual on the NACC website. All transcripts must be received at the NACC office by the deadline for certification (February 15, 2009 for a fall 2009 Interview or September 15, 2009 for a spring 2010 interview). Specifically, refer to the following procedures:

CP131.3m - An official transcript of the basic academic degree (B.A. or B.S. Degree). Transcripts are to be sent directly from the institution(s) to the NACC. The Certification Commission requires transcript analysis at the Applicant’s expense for all degrees acquired outside the United States.

CP131.3n – An official transcript of the graduate-level theological degree. Transcripts are to be sent directly from the institution(s) to the NACC. The Certification Commission requires transcript analysis at the Applicant’s expense for all degrees acquired outside the United States.

CP126 – Completion of a graduate-level theological degree in theology, divinity, religious studies, pastoral ministry, pastoral studies, or spirituality (Standard 301.3).

Thanks to members who have sent us photos we can use for marketing materials. We can still use more! If you or your place of ministry have access to photos please assist us by e-mailing them in digital form to cbridges@nacc.org in the next week. We so appreciate it!

In our prior NACC Now, our NACC member, Jeanne Childs, desired to connect with other NACC members working in nursing homes to learn how they have articulated/promoted chaplaincy in these settings. Within 24 hours several members contacted Jeanne! Wow! What a prompt and great response! Thank you! We now have a core group of chaplains working in nursing homes that can network with each other. If you want to be part of this networking, please email Jeanne directly at jeannechilds@verizon.net or David at dlichter@nacc.org. If the NACC Now e-newsletter can assist you by publishing a similar request for your area of specialty inviting members to connect with you, please contact cbridges@nacc.org.

Article submissions are welcome for Vision's regular Seeking/Finding column, which is meant to provide spiritual reflection and nourishment. The column’s form and content vary. Chaplains' personal reflections often focus on experiencing God in the everyday – often in one’s work or ministry. Generally, length of the column is 800 to 1,200 words. For more information or to submit an article, write to Laurie Hansen Cardona, Vision editor.

Members periodically ask about the profile of our NACC membership. Phil Paradowski, Administrative Specialist/Special Projects/ IT Specialist and the Webmaster, has compiled a very informative profile of our members. The profile reveals clearly that the chaplaincy ministry has relied upon a remarkable host of members who are now in their 60’s and 70’s, and highlights our need to continue to promote the profession to the next generations of chaplains who will follow them! To see the report, click here. Note that this is a multi-page Excel workbook. If you don’t have Microsoft Excel on your computer, you can download a free viewer from Microsoft that will allow you to view, print, and copy (but not edit or create) Excel files: Click here to download the MS Excel Viewer from the Microsoft website.

Nearly 50 NACC members from the Northwest gathered September 19-20 at the Sunset Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon for professional and spiritual enrichment. Gordon Hilsman, D.Min., Franciscan Health, Tacoma, WA presented on Spiritual Assessment, and David Lichter, NACC Executive Director, reflected on the theme of standing with another in pain/suffering. The group also planned for future events. For more information on attendees and program, go to: www.nacc.org/local/or.asp.

The North Central Prairie NACC members never stopped gathering when the regions were discontinued several years ago. More than 40 members gathered again late last week, September 25-26, in Alexandria, MN. Same place (Holiday Inn), same time (late September), high quality program, low cost, steady leadership have all been key success factors. Fr. Richard Sparks, CSP, provided a series of presentations on “End-of-Life Decisions and Pastoral Care: Some Catholic-Christian Ethical and Bedside Perspectives” that were well received. The group already identified cultural and religious diversity as their theme for 2009!

NACC members are gathering in October in many states throughout the country, often in collaborative settings with state chaplain organizations, health systems, and APC. If you haven’t reserved a spot at these gatherings, please do. For details, go to our events calendar. These include:

October 10, Chaplains’ Association of Ohio, Findlay, OH
October 17, California NACC Regional Meeting, Mission Viejo, CA
October 26-28, Wisconsin Chaplaincy Association, Green Lake, WI
October 30, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Baton Rouge, LA
October 30, Saint Francis Medical Center/Centura Health, Colorado Springs, CO

More planning has been completed for the NACC member gatherings in St. Louis, MO, November 4, and in Baltimore, MD, November 12. Please visit our events calendar for more details. Join your colleagues!

Please continue to keep in prayer Teddi Tomsic (major surgery), Rev. Mike Burns, SDS (eye surgery), Sr. Hilda Mallet, MHS (undergoing cancer radiation treatments which followed chemo), Sr. Joyce Troyer, CSC (recovering from surgery), Sr. Albertine Kramer, CSC (recovering from extensive surgery, is in rehabilitation, and is in transition after serving for 18 years at St. Joseph Medical Center in South Bend, IN), Sr. Paula Jacobs, SSM (terminal cancer), Dennis Eldridge (Kathy’s husband, for cancer treatment), and Laurie Hansen Cardona – NACC Vision Editor (recovering from surgery).

The following positions have been posted in the last two weeks. Please go to our job listings for more information about them.

CHAPLAIN/SPIRITUAL CARE COORDINATOR
     West Bend, WI – Heartland Hospice

MANAGER, PASTORAL CARE
     Canton, OH – Mercy Medical Center

CHAPLAIN
     Springfield, OR – PeaceHealth Oregon Region

STAFF CHAPLAIN (EVENING)
     Lebanon, NH – Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

MANAGER OF SPIRITUAL SERVICES
     Woodruff, WI – Howard Young Medical Center

CHAPLAIN CLINICAL COORDINATOR
     Indianapolis, IN – St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital

CHAPLAIN
     Chicago, IL – Mercy Hospital and Medical Center

CATHOLIC PRIEST
     Portland, OR – Providence Health & Services