Director of Member Engagement: M. Colette Gaffney, DMin

Colette Gaffney (pronouns they/them/theirs) currently lives on the lands of the Houma and Chitimacha in New Orleans, LA, and has worked as an ACPE Certified Educator and Mental Health Chaplain while clowning as Tinsel the Truth Teller at Big Couch NOLA. As the Director of Member Engagement, Colette centers the values of justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility while co-creating spaces where the association can fully integrate our psychotherapy, clinical practitioner, and spiritual care professional memberships with our certified educators. Colette comes to this role as a collaborative co-creator committed to holding a space where the group can do its work.

Colette was certified by ACPE, Inc. as an Educator in 2020 after undergoing the current process since 2017, and later became National Faculty in 2022. They are board-certified by the National Association of VA Chaplains, and in April 2021, they completed their doctoral research at Union Theological Seminary entitled "Spiritual Formation in the Practice of Spiritual Care Education and Supervision." Since becoming certified, Colette has served on the Professional Well-Being Committee as liaison to the psychotherapy communities of practice, the Accreditation Commission as commissioner and portfolio reviewer, the Anti-Ableism Task Force as co-convener, created the Consultation and Education of Disability Community of Practice, and worked as a theory mentor with a particular focus on those developing unique presentations.  

Colette came to New Orleans as the educator at Ochsner Health’s CPE program in December 2021 via Oklahoma City where they joined the VA chaplain team focusing on in-patient mental health spiritual care, outreach to Veterans experiencing homelessness and out-patient mental health, overseeing the chaplain intern program, palliative care, provided spiritual care a community living center, suicide prevention, and moral injury. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, they became the administrator of the chaplain education program at the Oklahoma City VA. And during lockdown, their clinical responsibilities included inpatient COVID-19 units, outpatient tele-spirituality groups like an interfaith women’s spiritual community, and Spiritual Recovery for LGBTQIA+ Veterans who are recovering from spiritual/religious trauma. 

Throughout these times, Colette also served as a U.S. Army Reserves Chaplain for a total of eight years, pastor of a Disciples of Christ church for two years, and as a board member of a healthcare clowning non-profit called Prescription Joy, as well as the spiritual/secular non-profit Just Love Greater New Orleans. All of these experiences have informed a CPE curriculum that centers on sustainable spiritual caregiving practices, trauma, interfaith spiritual care, mental health, cultural humility, and systems awareness.