Spiritual Care (SC) Informal Opinion Survey Results Support the IIP

Sixty-five completed surveys from SC chaplains, clinical pastoral educators, pastoral counselors, students, and academics indicate that by these insiders' own reckoning SC is two-thirds of the way (68%) toward professional authenticity when measured against 19 characteristics of a profession. (Agreement on any one of the 19 items was interpreted to mean that SC was perceived to be fully authentic professionally regarding that characteristic.)

At the high end of the agreement spectrum, the 65 respondents unanimously agreed (100% seems amazing for any SC group) that "SC emphasizes experiential as well as cognitive training." The lowest percentage of agreement (30%) came in response to the statement that SC is “"ypically regulated by statute."

Of the survey's three broad areas, SCers agreed that SC "measures up" professionally most often (84%) regarding their own personal qualities and training, less so (67%) in accountability, and least (57%) in working intentionally from a technical knowledge base.

This last finding tends to confirm the hypothesis of the Ideal Intervention Project, which is that building an accessible national SC technical knowledge base deserves the urgent attention of every SC practitioner and educator in today's health care delivery crisis--for the best possible care of patients and clients (or in the current jargon, for quality improvement), for full credibility on treatment teams, for licensure where appropriate, and for assurance of continued representation in institutional budgets.

IIP Unexpected Benefits Discovered

Two unexpected benefits of the Ideal Intervention Project have been discovered.

1. The knowledge base can be used as a curriculum resource. For example, a new NICU chaplain could access all the materials accumulated under the central issue identifier "fetal demise" to gain others' wisdom in preparation for the work. To visit the SC knowledge base in its current location, go to http://www.acperesearch.net and click on "Special Section: IIP Project." Then click for "Sample IIPs".

2. Supervisory education students meeting readiness committees have reported being better able to document having met the Outcomes of ACPE Level 2 by presenting IIP papers with their verbatim material.

Three Important Reminders

CPE Supervisors, review with students in individual supervision their Ideal Intervention Papers or Ideal Intervention Forms written after peer group verbatim presentations. Then make sure that they forward them as Word document attachments to Fr. Henry Heffernan, SJ, at hheffernan@gonzaga.org for processing into the growing IIP SC knowledge base. (Document that last step by requiring each student to give you a copy of the cover e-mail message to Fr. Heffernan.)

Chaplains, pastoral counselors and other SC practitioners, please forward your completed Ideal Intervention Forms (Practitioners) in like manner. Obtain forms from the e-mail address below.

Please contact the Editor at mariejohn50@att.net with your requests, questions and comments.