ABOUT
Kaiser Northwest Chaplain Professional Education (CPE) Training program was developed in May 2022 by CPE Supervisor Ben Rrustemaj, M.Div, BCC with the first CPE unit/semester Ben taught from September through December 2022. This program was developed to cater to people with a variety of employment statuses, education levels, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, languages, and spirituality.
We offer CPE Training at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center and Kaiser Westside Medical Center in Portland, Oregon CPE Program.
It takes 400 hours to complete one unit of CPE. This consist of 100 educational hours in the class (in person or via Zoom, including Individual Supervision, and 300 clinical hours, visiting patients and documenting visits.
WHAT OUR CHAPLAINCY TRAINING INCLUDES
Chaplain training involves an action-reflection model of learning that engages with real people in real situations of crisis, distress, uncertainty, suffering, loss, or grief.
Utilizing the hospital as a container for learning, our training provides Chaplain Trainees a wide range of ministry opportunities among a very diverse community of patients in a number of settings.
The founder of clinical pastoral training, Anton Boisen, situated theology among the social sciences and believed that a religious or theological education alone was insufficient for meeting the needs of those persons chaplains care for. A distinctive aspect of our program is how seriously we take the significant contributions that the behavioral and social sciences and other fields offer to understand the people we care for. Chaplains-in-training in our program will find that integrating learning from fields as diverse as systems theory, interpretive anthropology, neuro-psychoanalysis, and others, will significantly enhance their ministry and help them to care for others.
In addition to the supervised direct ministry experience itself, our training includes:
Case Study Reviews
Case studies are the principal learning tool in clinical chaplaincy training and each Chaplain Trainee is required to write up and present to their cohort group case studies of actual caregiving encounters.
The goals of the case study are to promote individual self-reflection by the chaplain and to use peer consultation and that of the clinical supervisor to refine the chaplain's competence.
Small Peer Group Relations
The small peer group provides opportunities for chaplains to explore issues in the "here and now" and fosters an experiential learning about issues such as boundaries, authority, roles, and tasks using the cohort experience as a tool to understand unconscious processes in group systems.
Didactics
A variety of presentations are provided by Supervisors and others.
The subject matter, always tied to real cases and situations, is wide-ranging and includes a material drawn from the behavioral and social sciences. Special topics are drawn from the supervisors' areas of expertise and placements of the chaplains.
Trainees may also have an opportunity to offer didactics of their own choosing to their peers.
Individual Supervision
Regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with a supervisor provide the chaplain-in-training an opportunity to review cases and aspects of one's pastoral care and counseling, to reflect upon personal and professional aspirations and growth, to seek consultation, and to evaluate progress toward individual learning goals.
Readings and Various Media
In keeping with the scope of our program, readings and other resources come not only from the pastoral care literature but also the broad range of behavioral and social sciences.
Films and Internet-based media are also key resources in our program.
Everyone in our program has 24-hour access to the robust Kaiser Permanente clinical library network. Its librarians actively support the learning goals and interests of each program participant.
Your CPE journey will enhance your inner growth to become a clinical chaplain - sharing the work of ministering to the patients of the hospital, processing together religious, social science and neuro-psychoanalytical texts, and experiencing the power of Group Relations and the predilections of others. You will be challenged and changed by this experience!
Our Chaplain Trainees learn by serving as hospital chaplains at Kaiser Permanente facilities and then sharing and reflecting upon their experiences with their supervisor and fellow trainees.
Working beside board-certified clinical chaplains they provide clinical pastoral care to in-patients and their loved ones, to out-patients, and to those in hospice care, as well as to staff members.
Each chaplain-in-training is assigned to units and departments that provide opportunities to experience a variety of care settings with their unique ministry challenges. They provide coverage and get an opportunity to become skilled in facing crises and meeting unanticipated immediate needs.
The principal learning in CPE is at the bedside. However, Chaplain Trainees also meet regularly as a cohort group with a clinical supervisor to share case conferences, for didactic seminars, to share theological reflections and for an interpersonal group relations seminar. There is also a regularly scheduled hour-long, one-on-one session with the clinical supervisor that is devoted to the trainee’s own unique interests and particular situation.
WE ARE CURRENTLY ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for EXTENDED (half-time) CPE UNITS at Kaiser Permanente in Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center and Kaiser Westside Medical Center. CPE Units are offered three time a year, January-May, June-August, and September-December.
The Application and Tuition Fee has been WAIVED for all applicants by a generous gift from the Kaiser Hospitals Administrators.
HOW TO APPLY:
Applications are reviewed monthly as they are received. Informal interviews will be conducted with applicants who seem suitable after reviewing the application. Admission decisions are made on an ongoing basis until a unit’s cohort group is filled.
If you have questions, and for more information, email: Arbenit.Rrustemaj@kp.org or cellphone 503-504-0621.
After you have been accepted into the program, please go to the link below to complete the Chaplain Trainee initial onboarding document. This will allow for us to process your background check, initiate your drug screen, complete immunization requirements and other compliance onboarding tasks and provide information on how to get your immunization records reviewed. This part of the process will take a month as long as the trainee completes the requirements in a timely manner.