Uniting Through Common Concepts: Updates and Initiatives within ACPE
Greetings ACPE Colleagues,
This column comes to you as we celebrate July 4th across the United States of America. Recently it seems there is so much that divides us and less that unites us. Regardless, there are times like July 4th where we celebrate common concepts that people have certain Inalienable Rights including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. All people are created equal; Individuals have a civic duty to defend these rights for themselves and others.
These concepts show up in our work with clients, students, and groups. Our work is to hold space in the tension where there is difference. For those of you who might use system centered approach in therapy or in groups, the goal for a couple or a group is to identify the sub-system in which they work best together, and then work together to learn more about how they make it work. My point is, we do the kind of work that can be a source of healing in divisive times.
What we relearned in New Orleans is there are ways to live in difference in a healthier way. One of those ways is becoming conscious of the difference between the narrative of what we think is going on and what the reality is when we take out interpretation. To that end, I’m devoting this article to passing along information on key initiatives within ACPE. Each month the chairs of commissions and committees meet to update the rest of the leaders on the work of their particular groups. We met this past week. This is in addition to the monthly meetings of the board.
Here are some updates from that meeting:
Outcomes and Accreditation
Katy Wilcox gave me an update on utilizing the new outcomes:
The new student evaluation and program evaluation go into effect for a program the first time they start using the new outcomes. The first time a program uses them could be for fall programs or the first time they begin a unit in 2024. If a program starts a residency this fall, they can use either the old or new outcomes for the duration of the residency. If the fall program is an extended unit, they can choose either old or new outcomes. The requirement is that any program that begins after January 1, 2024, is required to use the new outcomes and new final eval.
Katy also updated us on the use of the new final evaluation:
The final eval was open for feedback until June 15. The student achievement work group will be working with the feedback and have a final eval ready for the summer unit to use. The group is meeting in early July to work with the feedback.
Liam Robins gave an update on the pilot groups using the new outcomes:
The pilot groups meet weekly to discuss how their unit is progressing with the new Outcomes in place. The group provides a creative thinking space for how to do things differently, perhaps mid-unit evaluations, verbatim formats, etc. if people want to adapt them. Educators are finding the group to be a supportive encouraging space to talk out how the changes are and are not affecting how they educate their students. Feedback is being taken as the group meets as well as after the unit ends and will be taken back to the Outcomes Work Group for further fine-tuning of the Outcomes and Indicators.
Strategic Planning Process
Cecelia Walker (ACPE Board Chair-elect), Robin Brown-Haithco (Interim Executive Director), Jonathan Ball (Secretary/Treasurer of ACPE), and I have met with Onuka Ibe (partner in the Strategic Planning process from La Piana) regularly in the strategic planning process. We passed along to Onuka all the notes we collated from the listening sessions at the ACPE Conference in New Orleans. The results of our meetings have been the establishment and timeline of workgroups as we move into Phase 3. The current workgroups include:
- I will be chairing a work group on ACPE’s outward-facing connections. Based on feedback, how do we envision ACPE’s relationship to the larger ecosystem of spiritual care and education? This work group will be made up of the recent past presidents of ACPE along with a member of the board.
- Member engagement and experience will be chaired by Jonathan Ball. This workgroup will include members of the Professional Well-Being Committee and a member of the board. This will include what the connection will look like across the organization. Loss of connection has been a key piece of feedback amongst association members.
- Psychotherapy Commission chair-elect Carol McGinnis continues to chair the work group that began its work several months ago on the integration of psychotherapists into ACPE.
- Cecelia Walker will be chairing a work group focused on the integration of members into leadership and activity in ACPE. Cecelia will be collaborating with leaders from the commissions to address the feedback related to member involvement.
Other work groups will follow related to staffing and communication. In the cadence of the strategic planning process, some work needs to be addressed before other work groups can do their work.
Strategic Partner Conferences
Each spring, our strategic partners have annual conferences to gather their members. I’ve had the privilege of representing ACPE at these conferences. The Strategic Partners continue to work together to communicate and achieve common goals related to the field of professional spiritual care and education.
John Simon invited spiritual care and education groups from around the country to talk about what work we might share in common at the Association of Professional Chaplains conference in Houston at the end of June. There were 21 entities represented including religious endorsers, spiritual care organizations, and several other CPE providers. The meeting provided the opportunity for leaders to introduce their organization and themselves, share what hopes they may have for a “Common Council”, and this led to a robust conversation on ethics and standards for such organizations.
Executive Director Search Committee
The committee continues to do its work on the hiring process for a new executive director for ACPE. The group spent a good amount of time on the job description to ready it for posting. The job has been posted for the last month and we’ve been receiving applications from a variety of internal and external (to ACPE) candidates. Meanwhile, the committee has worked on several grids to discern what we are looking for in a candidate. We will keep you apprised of this important work on behalf of the ACPE Board and the association.
The 4th of July weekend also heralds the quick unfolding of summer. It is my hope that during this holiday weekend and during the summer months you have some time to pause and reflect. I love the ways in which Mary Oliver teaches us to slow down and reflect in her poem The Summer Day. I leave you with these beautiful images and an invitation to decelerate, notice, and connect to your soul:
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver