Events Calendar

The 2026 ACPE Annual Conference, Elevating Community, Deepening Practice, is our gathering for the full ACPE community: spiritual care educators, psychotherapists, pastoral counselors, and the educator candidates who represent the future of this field. This year, we welcome Tricia Hersey, Dr. Bilal Ansari, and Dr. Myron Krys as featured speakers, bringing voices that challenge, ground, and expand our understanding of spiritual care, formation, and the communities we serve.

This year's programming meets you where you are. General sessions dedicated to the updated Accreditation Standards and processes will give educators the grounding they need to move forward with confidence. Every ACPE committee and commission will lead workshops within their areas of expertise, and pre-conference offerings provide dedicated formation spaces for educator candidates, psychotherapists, and pastoral counselors before the main conference begins on Sunday evening. From international partnerships and sustainable program development to peer review practice, this conference is designed to send you home with more than you arrived with.

Register Now

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Registration Rate

Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities are still available for this year's conference. This event places your organization in direct conversation with leaders shaping spiritual care across healthcare, education, and community settings. Sponsorship opportunities are still available and begin at $2,500. 

View Sponsorship Packet

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Hotel Room Information

ACPE members enjoy discounted rates on their stay at the Gila River Resort during the annual conference. Rooms are available beginning October 7. Reservations are now open.

Reserve Now

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Award Nominations

Nominations are now open for the ACPE Service Award and the Champion for Spiritual Care Award. Please complete nominations by Friday, July 10. Winners from both award categories will be recognized at the ACPE Annual Conference

The Service Award recognizes individuals who have offered distinguished service and demonstrated innovative leadership in their vocation. We invite ACPE members to nominate themselves or a colleague for recognition of outstanding contributions to our association or the fields of spiritual care, education, or spiritually integrated psychotherapy.

Submit Service Award Nomination

The Champion for Spiritual Care Award recognizes healthcare leaders who exemplify exceptional dedication to promoting spiritual care within their organization. Awardees, who do not have to be ACPE members, understand the vital role of spiritual health in enhancing patient experiences and outcomes and actively work to ensure that spiritual care is integrated into the fabric of their healthcare systems.

Submit Champion for Spiritual Care Award Nomination

Pre-Conference Offerings

Featured Speakers

Tricia Hersey has over 25 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian and community organizer. Tricia is the founder of The Nap Ministry, the originator of the ‘rest as resistance’ and ‘rest as reparations’ frameworks, and creates sacred spaces where the liberatory power of rest can take hold in collaboration with communities all over the world. Trica’s work is seeded within the soils of Black radical thought, somatics, womanism, and liberation theology, and is a guide for how to collectively unravel ourselves from the wreckage of capitalism and white supremacy.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from Eastern Illinois University and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, The Nap Ministry’s Rest Deck: 50 Practices to Resist Grind Culture, and We Will Rest!: The Art of Escape. 

Imam Dr. Bilal W. Ansari is a 2011 graduate of Hartford International University where he completed his M.Div equivalency and a 2019 graduate of Pacific School of Religion where he received the Doctor of Ministry degree with distinction upon submission of the dissertation entitled, “Shepherding as Islamic Pastoral Theology: Case Studies in American Muslim Chaplaincy.”

Dr. Ansari began his chaplaincy experience on two military bases in San Diego, California, where he volunteered from 1994 to 1997. He then began working as a professional correctional chaplain, first for the State of Connecticut from 1997 to 2009 and later for the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 2009 to 2011.

Dr. Ansari completed his Clinical Pastoral Education at St. Francis Hospital and later served on its Professional Advisory Committee, as well as the Advisory Committee of the University of California, San Francisco, from 2009 to 2016. He was the first Muslim chaplain at Williams College and served as Assistant Director of the Center for Learning in Action. Dr. Ansari also served as Dean of Student Services and Director of Student Life during Zaytuna College’s initial accreditation process.

Dr. Ansari is Assistant Vice President for Campus Engagement at Williams College, Co-Director of the M.A. in Chaplaincy program at Hartford International University, and an Associate Professor of Practice at Hartford International University. He advances the concept of shepherding as a Muslim model of institutional leadership. His scholarship and activism include service on the Professional Advisory Committee of the Institute of Muslim Mental Health and work in the fields of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Rev. Mary Myoku Remington is the Director of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Program at Upaya Institute and Zen Center. She brings a deeply contemplative perspective rooted in Buddhist spiritual care. Mary brings a wealth of experience in Buddhist-based spiritual caregiving and socially engaged Buddhism. She completed all her chaplaincy education in large healthcare systems in the New York City area, and has focused much of her spiritual care supporting those with addiction, disability, and persons approaching end of life.

For seven years, she was Director of the Spiritual Care Department at Good Samaritan Hospital, in Suffern, NY.  She began her relationship with Zen Buddhism through the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care in 2007, where she was General Manager of the Center for ten years, working closely with the co-founders to develop the program from the ground up. She also holds a private practice in spiritual care counseling and support.