Strategic Planning Update
On Wednesday, September 28, and Thursday, September 29th, a group of 10 ACPE Certified Educators and 2 ACPE Psychotherapists met at the Georgia Tech Hotel to move into our next phase in the strategic planning process.The participants represented the Board of Directors and the strategic planning team, a sub-committee of the board. Onuka Ibe and Rylan Kepner from La Piana facilitated the two-day session presenting the first strategic planning survey results and helping us work with the information gathered to discern a path forward. Trace Haythorn, Marc Medwed, John Roch, and Jasmine Okafor were present from the ACPE office in Atlanta to provide support with any operational questions from the working group of educators and therapists.
The graphic below may be familiar by this point. It illustrates the strategic planning process. During our retreat, we reviewed the survey data from the membership and information from the focus groups. I want to say a huge thank you to those who participated in the focus groups and survey. Your participation in these ways was core to our work.
We made an initial answer to all the questions around the colorful circle below. We are now deep into phases 1 and 2. We are preparing for another round of focus groups and a second survey that will explore the membership’s perspective on our initial answers to the questions in the circle below and give the board more information on how we want to live out our purpose as an organization. Please keep giving your feedback through the survey and focus groups.
I’d like to share with you two pieces of information that will keep you up to speed on the current work of the information that the board has been working on within the strategic planning process. You can find the survey findings and our meeting packet here.
It was helpful to get grounded in both the purpose of the organization and the service it provides in the broader world of the provision of and education for informed professional spiritual care. Dr. Helena Moon, biography can be found here, provided the group with a global concept of spiritual care education in her work on postcolonial spiritual care. Dr. Moon’s work provided a rich look into the context of spiritual care that is more diverse in its reach and scope. This set up a productive tension in conversation about spiritual care and education and thus the focus and purpose of ACPE.
Although we attempted to avoid word smithing and focused on seeking a clear vision, it was tempting to jump into the weeds. Onuka and Rylan guided us in broader work and helped us not to get ahead of ourselves. It is the commitment of the board to take the process step by step to get broad and deep input from the membership. For purposes of illustrating this for our more visual folks, the pyramid below illustrates where our work focused this past week at the organizational level of the pyramid (blue). Programmatic and operational aspects of the strategic plan come out of a clear organizational strategy.
I hope you found a glimpse into the process of this last week helpful. In the coming days, as the work from the last week is collated, you’ll be receiving more detail. As I said earlier, it is a commitment of the board that this is an informed, well-facilitated, inclusive, broad-reaching strategic planning process that can thoughtfully serve us well moving into the future.
On a personal note, being together in person again with members of the board was refreshing. I know some CoPs are beginning to meet in person again. Sharing and connecting with colleagues in person filled my spirit in ways that I’ve not felt for a long time. The pandemic has exacerbated isolation in all of us. My hope is that each of you, as you are able and comfortable, will have a chance to connect and experience time with colleagues and friends in the coming weeks.
Rev. Shawn Mai, ACPE Certified Educator at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, MN, serves as Chair of the Board of Directors. He may be contacted at shawn.mai@parknicollet.com