WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS FOR THE BOARD CERTIFICATION PROCESS

Version 1.0, January 2021

INTRODUCTION

As you take the next step on your journey to board certification with the Association of Certified Christian Chaplains, a significant portion of that process includes the demonstration that you, as an applicant, meet the generally accepted competencies of a spiritual care professional. With over thirty professional competencies, we understand that this can feel like a daunting challenge. Nevertheless, this is an important step in substantiating your readiness for the work of a board-certified chaplain. It is our hope that the following document will provide you with the guidance and confidence you need in order to meet this challenge with confidence.  

This document will be formatted with invitations to writing and specific questions to be answered. Each invitation or question will also have a response limit – oftentimes only a few paragraphs. Within your writing, there are a few things we are looking for (recognizing that not every question will require every element):

1) A demonstrated ability to succinctly speak to the nature of the competency.

2) Appropriate personal vulnerability in speaking to areas of growth or challenge.

3) Affirmative language describing your skills and successes with a competency.

4) Relevant disclosures of experience and lessons learned.

5) A balance between being overly theoretical or overly practical, instead preferring to see how theory and practice intersect.

With those concepts in mind, the remainder of this guide will lay out the specific expectations for written submissions. Your ability to communicate effectively in writing through this means is not only a vital skill (one that will serve you well in a variety of ways in the clinical setting), but is also a competency in itself. You will be expected to ensure that your verbal communications in the interview are both equally effective and that they reflect a clearly complementary relationship with your written responses. We encourage you to use this to write out your answers in a Microsoft Word document and upload all documents in one entry. Save your answers frequently, and review them before uploading and submitting them via this upload tool. Only complete submissions will be accepted, so please do not fill out one section and submit it. ​

Finally, we highly recommend that you do not delete your final word processing document after using the web-based submission tool, in the event of a server failure or other technical issue that does not allow the transmission of your final written submissions.  The board will review your written submissions prior to your interview. If minor deficiencies are found, you will be given the opportunity to address those deficiencies in the interview. If significant deficiencies are discerned, you will be notified of the deficiencies and invited to resubmit. Please note, in such an instance, you will be removed from the interview queue until updated submissions are received.

Please note:  The following Competencies and learning outcomes should be reflected in your writing. 
Suggestions are provided in each Essay for what ICPT Core Competencies the board will be looking for in your submissions.

ICPT Chaplain Core Competencies

1. Develop the ability to make use of the clinical process and the clinical method of learning. This includes the formulation of clinical data, the ability to receive and utilize feedback and consultation, and to make creative use of supervision.
2. Develop the self as a work in progress and cultivate the understanding of the self as the principal tool in pastoral care and counseling. This includes the ability to reflect and interpret one’s own life, theological reflection and the demonstration of a critical eye to examine and evaluate human behavior and religious symbols for their meaning and significance.
3. Demonstrate the ability to make a pastoral diagnosis with special reference to the nature and quality of religious values.
4. Demonstrate the ability to provide a critical analysis of one’s own religious tradition.
5. Demonstrate an understanding of story both psychologically and theologically.
6. Demonstrate the ability to establish a pastoral bond with persons and groups in various life situations.
7. Demonstrate basic care and counseling skills including listening, empathy, reflection, analysis of problems, conflict resolution, the dynamics of group behavior and the variety of group experiences, and utilize the support, confrontation, and clarification of the peer group for the integration of personal attributes and pastoral functioning
8. Demonstrate the ability to communicate and engage in ministry with persons across cultural boundaries.
9. Demonstrate the ability to utilize individual supervision for personal and professional growth and to develop and evaluate one’s own ministry.
10. Demonstrate the ability to work as a member of an interdisciplinary team.
11. Demonstrate the ability to make effective use of the behavioral sciences tools in pastoral ministry.
12. Demonstrate increasing leadership ability and personal authority.
13. Demonstrate clinical, behavioral, and theological clinical pastoral knowledge.

ICPT Curriculum Components

U1.1        Cultural Competence, Inclusion, and Vulnerable Populations
U1.2        Living with Heartbreak: Grief, Loss, and Bereavement
U2.1        Powerful Communication Techniques
U2.2        Values, Obligations, and Rights: Health Care Ethics
U2.3        When It’s Time to Say Goodbye: Introduction to Spiritual Care at the End of Life
U3.1        When Care is Tough: Supporting the Interdisciplinary Team
U3.2        Talking about What Matters: Advance Directives and Planning
U4.1        What to do with Information: HIPAA Compliance
U4.2        What We Hear and Say: Spiritual Assessment and Documentation

SECTION ONE: ESSAYS

Essays provide you with a lengthier format to engage with the Board Certification Committee on ‘big questions’ that are not easily summarized in a brief format.

ESSAY 1 Spiritual Autobiography - 

This essay addresses
ICPT Core Competencies: 1, 4, 5, and 9
ACPE Learning Outcomes: L1.1 and L2.1

Word Limit (Word Limit means do not exceed that amount.  Our interviewers don't want to have to read through 200 pages of text to find your answers): 2000 words (approximately 4 single spaced pages)

In the first essay, we are seeking to know you better. We want to learn about your life-story, as told principally through the lens of your faith experience. While it is certainly appropriate to include certain basic facts and formative experiences within your Spiritual Autobiography, the principal content should relate to your journey of faith. Areas to reflect upon include:

• Origins of my relationship with God
• The nature of my conversion experience (if applicable)
• Challenges experienced on my walk of faith
• What has ultimately motivated me to explore chaplaincy as a field of ministry

ESSAY 2 Theology of Chaplaincy

This essay addresses

ICPT Curriculum: 1.1, 2.2, and 3.1  
ICPT Core Competencies: 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 12, and 13
ACPE Learning Outcomes: L1.1, L1.2, L1.7, L2.1, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, and L2.7

Word Limit (Word Limit means do not exceed that amount.  Our interviewers don't want to have to read through 200 pages of text to find your answers):: 4000 words (approximately 8 single spaced pages)

In the second essay, we take the opportunity to explore your theology of chaplaincy. As a Christian certifying agency, it is important for us to see a manifest understanding of the origins of our faith tradition and its belief structure, as well as how you apply such insights into your delivery of spiritual care as a professional chaplain. A complete essay address the following competencies:

• Core foundations of the Christian faith and my denomination’s expression of it
• Central tenants of pastoral and spiritual caregiving from my faith tradition
• How I integrate psychological and sociological theory and the behavioral sciences in my vision and provision of spiritual care
• My awareness of the many ways that spirituality may manifest at different stages of life, including childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and in later years
• How you, as a provider of spiritual care, can adapt your practices based on such insights
• How you, as a provider of spiritual care, can be present to others who do not share the same faith
• How you seek to honor the physical, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and other expressed boundaries of others in professional practice

ESSAY 3 Professional Authority of the Chaplain - (core competencies 3,5,6,7,8,10,11)

This essay addresses
ICPT Curriculum: 1.1, 2.1, and 2.2  
ICPT Core Competencies: 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11
ACPE Learning Outcomes: L1.4, L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, L2.5, L2.6, L2.7, and L2.9

Word Limit (Word Limit means do not exceed that amount.  Our interviewers don't want to have to read through 200 pages of text to find your answers):: 2000 words (approximately 4 single spaced pages)

In the third essay, the board will be looking for your ability to lay hold of a balanced and healthy sense of professional authority on the part of you, the applicant. A complete essay address the following competencies:

• Identifying the sacred and secular foundations of the chaplain’s professional authority
• Self-reflection on self-experienced barriers to functioning in that authority, and ways that you have overcome them
• Particularly for those with previous pastoral experience in a congregational setting, a differentiation between the authority of a pastor/minister in that setting, and a chaplain in the functional (and oftentimes secular) interdisciplinary setting
• Defining advocacy as a component of spiritual care, and demonstrating its incorporation into your professional practice
• Give witness to how your sense of authority takes its place within an interdisciplinary care team, and how that authority impacts the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships among care team members
• Explore how, in your authority as a spiritual care professional, you interface with and actualize your organizations mission, vision, values, and community connections. (For individuals not currently employed as a chaplain, explore this competency based on your overall history through CPE and in previous comparable ministry environments.)

ESSAY 4 Professional Ethics - (core competencies 9,10,11)

This essay addresses
ICPT Curriculum:  1.1 and 2.2
ICPT Core Competencies: 9, 10, and 11
ACPE Learning Outcomes: L1.5, L2.2, L2.5, L2.8, and L2.9

Word Limit (Word Limit means do not exceed that amount.  Our interviewers don't want to have to read through 200 pages of text to find your answers):: 3000 words (approximately 6 single spaced pages)

In the final essay, the board’s focus is on exploring your ethical foundations and framework. Emphasis should include how your faith forms your ethics, secular influences on your ethical outlook, and your agreement with the Code of Ethics of the Association of Certified Christian Chaplains. Additional areas that should be addressed effectively include:

• How your ethical viewpoints lead you to provide effective spiritual care to a diverse population
• Exploring how your own sense of ethics interfaces with, informs, and plays a role in your organization’s overall ethical environment. (For individuals not currently employed as a chaplain, explore this competency based on your overall history through CPE and in previous comparable ministry environments.)
• Identify current area of ethical concern, and describe how you are working to explore that area of concern as you seek to provide professional spiritual care
• Share an example of a past ethical challenge and how you navigated it

In this essay, please ensure that you reflect on the emotional and spiritual challenges that come with navigating professional ethics.

SECTION TWO: INDEPENDENT WRITING - (PLEASE ADDRESS EACH OF THE ITEMS BELOW)

Independent Writing offers specific, focused topics linked to the competencies of professional chaplaincy. In these areas, be bold about your competencies, use appropriate examples to demonstrate competency, and share areas where you are either actively seeking growth or are aware of the need to grow. Each Independent Writing topic offers specific guidance on the length of the response, and the response should represent a blend of self-awareness, theory, and practice.

1.  Please identify your top three strengths in the provision of spiritual care, with brief commentary on each.  (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: 1, 2, and 4; ACPE: L1.2, L1.9, L2.1, L2.6, and L2.9)

2.  Please identify your top three limitations and challenges in the provision of spiritual care, with brief commentary on each. (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: 1, 2, and 4; ACPE: L1.2, L1.9, L2.1, L2.6, and L2.9)

3. Please speak to the ways that your own attitude, preconceptions, values, and experiences impact your professional practice. (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U1.1; 2, 5, 11, and 12; ACPE: L1.1, L1.2, L2.1, L.26, and L2.9)

4. Please reflect on what you believe makes for effective spiritual support for those you serve, including in your reflection a view on assessment and evaluation of outcomes. (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U1.1, U1.2, U2.1, U2.3, U3.1, and U4.2; 3, 4, 12, and 13; ACPE: L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, and L2.6)

5. In professional practice, management of crisis situations may arise at any time, compromising our ability to manage multiple situations. Please reflect, using an example from your own clinical experience, on how you triage, manage, and set priorities when faced with potentially overwhelming situations. In specific, please share with us how you recognize for yourself the need for backup or relief in such a situation. (Four Paragraphs. ICPT U1.2, U2.1, U3.1; 7, 12, and 13; ACPE: L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, and L2.6)

6.  How do you facilitate reflection on the spiritual, theological, or existential topics brought forth by your patients? In this process, what are the ways in which you both actively promote an individual’s native theological tradition as a source of strength and information, and avoid imposing your own viewpoints to substitute for an individual’s own beliefs and values?  (Three Paragraphs. ICPT U1.1, U2.3, U3.1; 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 13; ACPE: L1.1, L1.2, L2.2, L2.3, and L2.4)

7. Discuss how you provide appropriate spiritual support to patients, families, and staff in your professional encounters, and describe how you measure the effectiveness of your work. Indicate if the mode of measurement is personally determined or is mandated through a specific pathway (such as charting pathways, etc.). (Three Paragraphs. . ICPT: U1.1, U1.2, U2.1, U2.2, U2.3, U3.1, U3.2, U4.1, and U4.2; 1, 3, 7, 10, and 13; ACPE: L1.1, L1.2, L 1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, and L2.4)

8. Please provide a brief example (independent of one of your two submitted case studies) of how you have addressed a specific set patient, family, or staff needs and measured the outcome; walking through assessment, delivery of care, and measurement of outcome. (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U4.2; 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13; ACPE: L1.1, L1.2, L2.2, L2.3, and L2.4)

9.  Describe concrete ways in which you provide effective spiritual care to those in grief, be it anticipatory, process-related, or post-loss. If appropriate, please include information on restrictions you have experienced from an employer/place of ministry regarding accompanying individuals in the grief process. (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U1.2; 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, and 13; ACPE: L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, and L2.6)

10. What are some of the ways that you provide spiritual care in a group setting? What skills have you found helpful in the process, even if they are not, strictly speaking, related to spiritual care? What challenges have you experienced in providing spiritual care in a group setting outside of a congregational environment? (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U1.1, U2.1, U3.1; 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13; ACPE: L1.4, L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, and L2.6)

11.  How do you manage spiritual assessment? Are there specific models that you incorporate into your work? How do you actualize those assessments in your functional ministry? (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U4.2; 3, 11, and 13; ACPE: L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, and L2.4)

12.  Please share with us the methods you use to document assessment and spiritual caregiving, and how you communicate outcomes with other members of the interdisciplinary staff. If chart style records are not maintained in your setting, please explain what tools are available to you for communication of spiritual care needs to staff of other disciplines. (Three Paragraphs. ICPT: U4.2; 3, 7, 10, 11, and 13; ACPE: L1.7, L2.4, L2.5, and L2.7)

13.  How do you form, nurture, and conclude relationships you enter as a spiritual caregiver with openness, appropriate boundaries, and integrity? How has your approach evolved over your student experience and into functional caregiving? (Two Paragraphs. ICPT: U1.1, U2.1, U2.2, U3.1, U4.2; 2, 5, and 6; ACPE: L1.4, L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, and L2.7)

14.  Is the delivery of public worship expected of you in your current non-congregational role, or was it expected in a previous spiritual care role or as a student? If so, what governs how you develop these experiences of public worship and spiritual practice? As a Christian, how do you manage the sensitivities of both other Christian denominations as well as non-Christians in your area of practice? (Two Paragraphs. ICPT: U1.1, U2.1, U3.1; 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 12; ACPE: L1.5, L1.7, L2.2, L2.3, L2.4, and L2.6)

15.  As professional spiritual caregivers, we function often in environments that are designed as business, governmental, or otherwise organizationally managed. How do you recognize group and organizational dynamics at work in such environments, and how do you see your own function within those structures. (Three Paragraphs. Three Paragraphs. ICPT U2.1, U3.1; 1, 2, 9, 10, 12, and 13; ACPE: L1.2, L1.4, L1.5, L2.2, L2.5, L2.6, and L2.7)

16.  How are you currently utilizing research, professional journal articles, and professional books on pertinent topics to expand your horizons in providing spiritual care? Do you engage in research in your professional role? In what ways have you found yourself able to integrate your learning or research into your findings? (Two paragraphs for your general information, and two paragraphs for a specific example of how you are integrating learning or research. ICPT 1 and 13; ACPE: L1.6)

17.  How do you see yourself contributing to your organization in leadership and development areas? If not currently employed in a non-congregational environment, reflection on how you have done so in the past, or how you might theoretically do so in the future. Be certain to reference the realities of organizational structures, budgets, and your community served in your response. (Four Paragraphs. ICPT: 1, 9, 10, and 12; ACPE: L1.2, L1.4, L1.5, L2.2, L2.5, L2.6, and L2.7)

18.  Describe your approach to whole-person self care. Please provide a brief overview of your philosophy of self care, and then provide an inventory (or plan) of activities. Keep in mind, we are looking for aspects that serve the body, mind, and spirit.  (One paragraph for overview. Inventory may be of any length and in any format. ICPT 2; ACPE: L1.3, L1.9, L2.5, L2.7, and L2.9)

19.  Do you have formal training in any complimentary disciplines, programs, or processes that you use to enhance your provision of spiritual care? If so, please provide a listing of those areas of training, with notation on any certification or similar status you have to practice. (A listing of any length will suffice. If not, please fill in this question N/A.)