Click here to return to the main NACC Now page.

1. Executive Director’s Reflection
2. Please complete today the important SCC Survey you received last week!
3. What do you need to become an institutional leader?

Summit '09 Approaches!
4. Don’t forget to register for the SCC ’09 Summit!
5. Volunteers at Summit ‘09
6. American Red Cross Spiritual Care Response Team Training (SRT)
7. Liturgical Volunteers for Summit ‘09

Other News
8. CHAP 25TH Anniversary Program!
9. First ever Texas NACC gathering a success!
10. New process for NACC website on-line job posting
11. Healing Tree: a request for prayers

Over the past year, NACC has been blessed by so many of you who are volunteering your time, experience, expertise, and talent to the diverse projects, certification activities, task forces, and events that have emerged and moved forward. Thank you all! These efforts help us fulfill the NACC mission to advocate for the profession of spiritual care, and to educate, certify, and support our members. You can access the visual of NACC Now that shows our diverse activity here.

Last spring we were also so pleased by and grateful for the enthusiastic response to proposing potential candidates for the NACC Board leadership, and by the generosity of the candidates that did present themselves for the one 2009 board position. Since last spring, the Board has also been identifying the skills/backgrounds needed by individuals to serve on the Board. This process will also help with the future selection of candidates.

As more members express their interest to serve, and more opportunities to volunteer emerge, the NACC Board members realized that they needed more clear descriptions of the volunteer opportunities offered, better criteria of the background/experience needed to fulfill these volunteer roles, and a better process for inviting and processing volunteer interest. Therefore, the NACC Governance Committee has worked over the past months to develop a new process and structure for identifying, calling forth, and preparing members for leadership roles within the NACC: click here to read.

A Nomination Sub-Committee (NSC) is now being established to determine the slate of qualified candidates for Board election and to recommend candidates for nomination as members of the various standing committees, commissions, task forces, panels, and ad-hoc committees in compliance with NACC By-Laws, Procedures and Criteria established by the Board. The NSC will report to the Governance Committee.

We are currently seeking candidates who are willing to be considered to serve on this NSC. Please refer to the candidate criteria document here. The application form for this NSC can be found on the NACC website here.

Please give prayerful consideration of your potential leadership on this committee.

Appreciatively,
David A. Lichter
NACC Executive Director

On December 1 you received a special e-mail requesting your participation in an SCC Survey that the NACC Board of Directors is conducting to gather critical information for the professional spiritual and pastoral care cognate membership groups and for the SCC leadership as it sets strategic direction for its future. It takes less than 10 minutes to complete. You can do it right now. Please click here. We need your counsel.

The Pastoral Care Summit Care Services Task Force is currently identifying the areas of leadership development most needed for chaplains who seek to grow into institutional leadership roles, such as directors of pastoral care or mission leaders. Which areas of professional development are most critical? Please send a list of what you believe are the most critical areas of professional development to the Task Force to dlichter@nacc.org.

Don’t forget to register for Summit ’09 “Health and Hope: The Hard Reality of Living Intentionally in a Village of Care,” February 1-4, 2009 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort and Convention Center in Walt Disney World® Florida. You can register online at www.spiritualcarecollaborative.org/scc_summit09.asp. Join the six associations of the Spiritual Care Collaborative in this historic gathering!

We need your help! Many hands are needed to help with NACC specific events at Summit ’09. If you are attending the Summit and would like to volunteer your assistance for NACC specific events, review the events and times at the NACC website, then use the sign-up form to notify us of your selections. We are in need of volunteers for all of our liturgical celebrations, including priests to assist with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. You will be contacted prior to the conference with instructions. If you have any questions, please contact Susanne Chawszczewski at schaw@nacc.org.

January 29-30, 2009
Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort and Convention Center
Walt Disney World®, Florida

The American Red Cross Spiritual Care Response Team (SRT) is an integral part of the ARC Critical Response Team and is deployed following aviation and other transportation disasters, mass casualties, WMD/terrorism events, and by government request. The training begins at 1:30 pm on Thursday, January 29, and 8:00 am on Friday, January 30. Participants are required to attend both days. This training is offered free of charge, although all accepted participants are responsible for their own travel and maintenance.

Given the limited class size and necessity for a formal application process, we cannot guarantee that every request to attend will be able to be honored. Members in good standing from our collaborative associations may apply. Therefore, it is imperative that you submit your application prior to December 10, 2008. Applications and membership requirements are available on the 2009 Summit website. Email completed applications to: Earl Johnson, BCC, at JohnsonEa@usa.redcross.org. Questions should be directed to Earl Johnson.

We are looking for members who are attending the Summit ’09 who may be interested in being part of our liturgies and doing some simple liturgical movement. Instructions will be given and you will be contacted prior to the Summit ’09. If you are interested, please contact Norma Gutierrez, MCDP at srnor@msn.com.

The Catholic Healthcare Administrative Personnel Program (CHAP) will be held May 18-22, 2009 in New York on the campus of St. John’s University. This is the 25th anniversary of educating professionals for the ministry of Catholic healthcare. Partial scholarships and group rates are available. For further information or to request a program brochure, please call or email request to: The CHAP Program, 718-990-8445 or fitzpata@stjohns.edu.

During the past week, December 2-3, nearly 30 NACC members gathered at the Oblate Renewal Center in San Antonio, Texas for two days of professional and spiritual enrichment (see the program here). Presentations, prayer, vocational sharing, and future planning filled the schedule. Participants look forward to the next one. Fr. Baaju Izuchi, the state liaison, worked with Cindy Bridges and David Lichter in the planning. For a list of participants click here.

Over the past months, we have communicated through Vision and in NACC Now that the NACC advertisement of job openings will be provided exclusively on our NACC website, rather than also continuing to publish the positions available in the Vision. The advantages for a prospective employer include both the ease of posting the position, and the immediate alerting of our membership through NACC Now that is sent bi-weekly. For more information about placing an ad or viewing a job opening on the NACC website click here.

A member recently raised the question whether our Healing Tree requests for prayers might potentially violate HIPAA rules since we disclose information about individuals. It has been our custom that we only include information that is provided by our members who asked to be remembered. We will continue to include for your prayer the names of individuals who request our member support, and only include the information that they provide us us. We will publish a person’s name for two issues (four weeks), unless the person requests that we leave it in longer. We know the importance of our prayer for one another. Please continue to keep in prayer Judy Novak (radiation treatment for colorectal cancer), Sr. Rose Grabowski, SSJ-TOSF (stomach surgery), Bro. Brian Boyle, CPPS (broken foot); Rev. Jim Radde, SJ (recovering from surgery), Mary Pawicz, NACC Staff member (recovering from heart surgery), Teddi Tomsic (major surgery), Sr. Hilda Mallet, MHS (undergoing cancer radiation treatments which followed chemo), Sr. Paula Jacobs, SSM (terminal cancer), and Dennis Eldridge (Kathy’s husband, for cancer treatment).