Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) 

Community-based CPE offers you the benefit of identifying a local clinical setting which aligns with the kind of ministry/chaplaincy your heart is leading you to. This includes hospice, nursing home/assisted living facilities, homeless shelters/street chaplaincy, animal chaplaincy, prison/jail work, environmental chaplaincy, etc. Your setting will need to meet certain requirements to be formally accepted as a CPE learning site. Community-based CPE is an excellent choice for people who may not want to do traditional hospital chaplaincy, people who cannot travel far to a placement, and people who would like to create their own ministry/chaplaincy. Working in one’s local community also strengthens community ties on all levels-benefitting the same community you live in.

Distance-Learning CPE is a model used to bring together people from diverse settings and placements by using modern technology (weekly Zoom internet-based video meetings) as a setting for our regular peer groups. We recognize that a great deal of the CPE learning comes from the peer group process, and we have found a sustainable balance of peer group learning via Zoom meetings that provides high quality supervision for each individual within their unique clinical placements. This enables people to learn together who, under normal circumstances, would not be able to due to the challenges of travel. 

We offer 2 options for our 12-13-week sessions:

1 unit=400 hours

300 clinical hours

100 supervision

$1650

1/2 unit=200 hours 

$950.00

Every unit includes: written theological/wisdom reflections, a minimum of 5 case conferences presented to peers and supervisor, multiple assigned readings; presentation of didactic on a topic pertinent to the theme of the unit, a presentation on one of the readings of the unit, written openings and closings for group meetings. We also schedule weekly 1:1meetings with your supervisor.

In addition, there will be a peer-to-peer verbal mid-term evaluation, and an end of unit written self-evaluation, which will be followed by the supervisor’s evaluation. 

You will need a stable internet connection for our weekly Zoom meeting. On the day of each class day you will get a Zoom invitation. You just need to call or click on the number in the Zoom invite to attend.

We recognize the pros and cons of this technology and have found if we take regular breaks on the hour, it greatly helps enhance the positive experience of this modality. We are continually receptive to feedback on our use of video conferencing.

-What are the credentials of your CPE Supervisors and Supervisory Education Fellows?

Pacific Institute for Essential Conversations (PIEC) has six fully credentialed CPE Supervisors and three Supervisory Education Fellows. Each of our CPE Supervisors have emerged from education, training and certification in cognate professional organizations as well as from CSCPF. Our fully credentialed CPE Supervisors have many years of experience as pastoral counselors, professional chaplains, spiritual directors. and educators. Several of our supervisors have served as directors of pastoral care departments in major medical centers. 

Supervisory Education Fellows (SEF) are individuals who have completed four units of CPE and who have the necessary work and educational background to enter a training and education program to become fully credentialed CPE Supervisors. Our SEFs work under the direct supervision of a fully certified CPE Supervisors.

Click here to view the bios of our faculty.

PIEC CPE units meet and in some cases, exceed the commonly shared professional standards for Clinical Pastoral Education. PIEC units are accredited by The Center for Spiritual Care and Pastoral Formation (CSCPF). Units are recognized by the Spiritual Care Association (SCA) and a limited number of units may be recognized by the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC). The world of CPE accreditation/recognition has become complex in recent years and each student needs to become familiar with the differences in accreditation and seek CPE programs that meet their personal and professional intentions.  Be mindful that name recognition does not equate with quality of education or competency of clinicians.  Clinical competency is not something 'given' to you by the name recognition of your CPE program.  Clinical competency in pastoral and spiritual care is a skillful art that is cultivated through professional experience and within your own heart, mind and soul. Choose carefully.

We have multiple CPE programs and sites.  Each program offer 2 or 3 units per year. 

The Center for Spiritual Care and Pastoral Formation offers Board Certification for clinical chaplaincy based upon the common standards of professional chaplaincy. CSCPF also offers certification in a variety of clinical specialties. You may find more information at the CSCPF website: cscpf.org

We do not offer scholarships at this point. We request ½ the unit fee be paid by the start of the

unit, with the remaining due by the 2 nd week of the unit.

No, we do not, but we can help you define some potential places of service in your area.

1. That you get the number of onsite hours, see breakdown below.

2. That you have enough pastoral encounters with people to enable at least 3 case

conference write-ups per unit.

3. That someone on site with authority knows you are doing CPE with us and signs off on

our ‘sign and return’ forms before the unit starts. (Sometimes a site supervisor might not

be easily identifiable, in which case we can talk about an alternative)

We try to keep our cohorts at about 6 people.

Once we have 6 people ready to go, we poll everyone as to their best times, then choose a time

that works for everyone. Given that our students are all over the country in different time zones,

and with different time commitments re: job, school, family, etc, we time our cohorts

accordingly.

It is vitally important that our cohort be present for every meeting. We know life events can

change things last minute, but can work with that. If you know in advance you will miss one

of our cohort meetings, please let the CPE supervisor know in advance. If you know you will

need to miss more than one, perhaps it is best to do CPE another time.

Absolutely. We recognize that spiritual care is needed in many aspects of these complex times.

Ministry/chaplaincy and Social Justice/Advocacy are blending in many exciting ways. If you

have a ministry/chaplaincy that is out of the ordinary but fits the requirements of a CPE unit,

let’s have a conversation.

One unit is 400 hours spread over 12 weeks. 300 of those hours are clinical and include your: on-site time, time reading, writing, etc for the

unit 100 of those hours are instructional, including the Zoom meetings and your 1-1 weekly meetings with your assigned supervisor.

It roughly breaks down to 16-20 hours per week.

Not many. The only differences are that someone doing a ½ unit would present 1 less case per

unit and possibly skip a week or two of 1-1 conversations but would still need to be present at all

the cohort meetings. We rarely recommend ½ units.

Use the ‘contact us’ form on the home page and let us know!

If you would like to schedule a conversation to talk about CPE

please email susan@pacinstitute.org