menu The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

Samaritan Spiritual Care Education Center

Dr. Cynthia Mason, Program Administrator

Mission, Core Values, and Vision

Mission

The SAMARITAN SPIRITUAL CARE EDUCATION CENTER Clinical Pastoral Education Program (CPE) mission is to make and equip clergy, military personnel, seminarians, and care providers with the ability to provide compassionate, emotional, and spiritual care to a diverse population.

We strive to respond to the whole person respectfully and compassionately, utilizing the best in ethically centered practice and education.

Core Values

Integrity – demonstrated through trust, respect, and excellence.

Curiosity – demonstrated through listening, experiential models, innovation, and creativity.

Diversity and inclusion – demonstrated through cultural humility, attentiveness, and collegiality

Process – demonstrated through action/reflection, listening, experiential and relational models

Excellence – demonstrated through consistently seeking ways to improve the care of care seekers

Service – demonstrated through compassion, authenticity, and growth

 Vision

To create measurable and appreciable improvement in spiritual health that transforms the spiritual care providers (ministers, lay ministers, care providers) and those they serve.

 “The priest and the Levite asked the first question: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'” Martin Luther King, Jr.


 

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Samaritan Spiritual Care Education Center’s (SSCEC) Program is a distance learning experience.  The program requires three in-person sessions – the initial session for Orientation, the Mid-Unit Assessment, and the final evaluation.  Most of the sessions will convene on Zoom.  Participants are responsible for securing a clinical site and a potential preceptor before beginning the program.

An ACPE Certified Educator will serve as the primary educator.  The educator will assemble a faculty to present didactics on various themes outlined in the center’s curriculum.

The center operates out of a model which supports interfaith professional education for ministers and care providers.  The center uses the Action-Reflection-Action model for adult learners, combining experiential learning and didactic presentation.

The peer group will consist of no more than eight (8) and at least five (5) interns.  When possible, the group will consist of a diverse population representing religious affiliation, ethnicity, culture, and gender.

The experience consists of a minimum of four hundred hours of supervised learning.  Participants will receive one hundred hours of direct supervision from an ACPE Certified Educator.  A minimum of three hundred hours will come from participants’ actual practice of ministry.  Participants will detail their pastoral-spiritual service and learning using various educational instruments, i.e., verbatim presentations, weekly reflections, didactics, and individual and group supervision.  Participants will develop a Learning Contract with personal and professional goals in consultation with the educator.  At the end of the unit, the resident and the educator will prepare a joint evaluation of the educational experience.

At the end of the unit, the Education Committee will conduct an Exit Interview.  The information gathered will help the center improve the program by enhancing the experience offered in future groups.


 

CURRICULUM FOR LEVEL I CLINICAL EDUCATION

THE SAMARITAN SPIRITUAL CARE EDUCATION CENTER

Curriculum Overview

The curriculum is an intentional effort to help the learner assess their current understandings, raise questions about their lives and ministry, and explore effective alternatives.

Program Outcomes

The program’s overall goals are:

  1. To apply and integrate skills into the practice of ministry.
  2. To learn about behavioral science theories and models of care for use in assessing and addressing the spiritual needs and strengths of care seekers.
  3. To learn about cultural and contextual dynamics in the lives of care seekers and use that understanding to guide the pastoral and spiritual response.
  4. To deepen the practice of self-compassion for the care provider.
  5. To address Objectives of Level I ACPE Standards.

Program Objectives

L1.1.  Articulate the central themes and core values of one’s religious/spiritual heritage and the theological understanding that informs one’s ministry.
L1.2.  Identify and discuss significant life events, relationships, social location, cultural contexts, and social realities that impact personal identity as expressed in pastoral functioning.
L1.3.  Initiate peer group and supervisory consultation and receive critique about one’s ministerial practice.

Themes in the Curriculum

  • Role of the minister in a specific context
  • Spirituality
  • Spiritual Assessment
  • Death and Dying
  • Minister’s Family of Origin and Administrative Style
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Responding to current events
  • Self-Compassion
  • Integration of Self
  • Theological Reflection
  • Preaching in Context
  • Crisis Management
  • Staff Support
  • Language Unique to the Setting
  • Parallel Process
  • Critical Conversation

Application for the Samaritan Spiritual Care Education Center

Download Application

Application

Download: Application