NACC Now

The National Association of Catholic Chaplains

Monday, February 25, 2008

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1.  Executive Director’s reflection

2.  How do you figure direct patient care?

3.  What type of professional development programs for chaplains do you have?

4.  What metric question or questions does your employer use?

5.  Would you share your story?

6.  Would you speak about chaplaincy?

7.  Healing Tree: A request for prayers

8.  Last Call for NACC Choir Members at 2008 Conference

9.  March 8th Pittsburgh Chaplain Gathering

10.  April 20th Florida Chaplain Gathering

11.  National Health Care Decision Day

12.  You still have a chance to donate to the first ever NACC Silent Auction!

13.  CHA Audio Conference on Chaplaincy

Executive Director’s Reflection

About a month ago I received an e-mail from a chaplain after she had read the most recent NACC Now that requested e-mail quotes, involvement on task forces, and samples of brochure materials. She expressed feeling overwhelmed by the number of requests for her responses! She noted she had a full-time job, and my requests were just adding to the stress of life. I e-mailed her back, expressing my apologies for creating stress for her. I commented that I did not expect every member to respond to every request for feedback or resources. However, I know NACC’S vitality, value, and healthy direction depends on what you as members can share with each other. Please keep sharing what you can, as you can.

That being said, we are making several more pleas to you for assistance. As you know, the Omaha 2007 Pastoral Care Summit jointly sponsored by the Catholic Health Association and NACC spawned several task forces (metrics, recruitment, care services/staff development, and education/credentialing) that continue the work begun at that Summit. Below there are several more requests from those task forces for your assistance. We do need your wisdom and resources so that the work of these task forces can be successful. Our members have a wealth of resources together. We promise to make these materials available to all members once the task forces have a chance to review them for their purposes.

We also want to keep building the NACC website so that it will be the first place to which you turn when you need ministry resources. Our Website Task Force will be recommending how best to make it most user-friendly for you.

How do you figure direct patient care?

The Pastoral Care Summit’s Task Force on Care Services/Staff Development is interested in hearing from chaplains, directors and systems that have in place a benchmark for time spent by chaplains in direct patient care (and how you define "direct"). What percentage of a chaplain’s time (50 percent? 60 percent?) and how do you define, or what type of service is included in, this ministry? Please send your responses to .

What type of professional development programs for chaplains do you have?

The Pastoral Care Summit’s Task Force on Care Services/Staff Development is planning to outline suggested components for professional training/education programs for chaplains seeking to prepare and position themselves for positions of directors/managers of pastoral care and directors/vice presidents of mission integration. If your hospital or system has such a program, would you please share it with us either by sending its components electronically or linking us to your website where it is housed. Contact .

What metric question or questions does your employer use?

The Pastoral Care Summit’s Task Force on Metrics is working with Press Ganey on developing and recommending a question or questions that aim to measure chaplaincy effectiveness. The task force members have the questions used by their employers, but seek to learn from what other healthcare employers use. Again, please share the question(s) that your employer uses, and any comments on the effectiveness or issues regarding their effectiveness. We appreciate any responses we receive. Please e-mail your responses to .

Would you share your story?

The Pastoral Care Summit’s Task Force on Recruitment is considering diverse materials to share with individuals who might consider chaplaincy. When I first arrived, I invited chaplains to share their “How I became a chaplain” or “What chaplaincy means to me” stories. I did receive a couple that I shared. Several task force members offered to write a couple paragraphs on their story in the next three weeks. How did you become a chaplain? Will you consider writing yours? We plan to have a place on the website where someone considering chaplaincy can go to read your stories (with photo and contact information) – and discover theirs. Please send your story (along with a digital photo of yourself) to by March 12th. We want these on the website for our conference.

Would you speak about chaplaincy?

Part of our recruitment and marketing efforts will be to utilize you, as chaplains, throughout the country to present on chaplaincy to groups. We plan to have a PowerPoint presentation and other material ready in the coming weeks. If you have presented on chaplaincy to groups already, we would like to see what you used and how effective you felt it was. We hope to have chaplains from around the country. We will plan to have resources for you and review them with you before any presentation. Would you consider being a presenter? Please contact .

Healing Tree: A request for prayers

The Vision contains the Healing Tree column where we place the names of our members who have requested our prayers for support and healing. Starting this issue of NACC Now, we will begin a regular Healing Tree notice alerting you to members who seek our prayer and support. This month we ask you to keep Deacon Michael Murray in prayer as his cancer has returned and also Sr. Mary Skopal, SSJ who is having extensive back surgery on March 3rd.

Last Call for NACC Choir Members at 2008 Conference

In the spirit of "bringing gifts that differ in splendid, varied ways", Chaplain Carey Landry, who is coordinating the music for the national conference, requests your help. He would like to form a small choir of ten people from the NACC membership to lead the music for three Masses and two prayer services during the conference. This will be the first time the music is led by our own membership and we are excited about that! Here are requirements for anyone interested in becoming part of the choir:

ü  There will be rehearsals on Saturday morning and evening (April 5).

ü  Currently participate in a parish choir, music ministry or community choir or have had recent experience in choral singing.

ü  Be able to attend the entire conference, as the final liturgy is on Tuesday, April 8th.

Please e-mail Chaplain Carey Landry directly at if you are interested. If you are interested but cannot meet all or part of the above requirements, feel free to e-mail Carey anyway.

March 8th Pittsburgh Chaplain Gathering

An e-mail invitation was sent to chaplains of Pennsylvania and Ohio, alerting and inviting them to a Lenten Day of Reflection to be held on Saturday, March 8th, 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the Spiritan Center, in Bethel Park, PA, 20 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. David Lichter, NACC Executive Director, will be leading the day. For more details and copy of brochure/registration form go to www.nacc.org/docs/resources/Pittsburgh Registration Form.doc

April 20th Florida Chaplain Gathering

An e-mail invitation was sent to chaplains of Florida, alerting and inviting them to a Day of Recollection and meeting of chaplains to be held on Sunday, April 20th, 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. near Orlando at the San Pedro Center, Winter Park, FL. David Lichter, NACC Executive Director, will be leading the day. For more details and copy of the brochure/registration form go www.nacc.org/docs/resources/Florida Registration Form.doc

National Health Care Decisions Day

National Healthcare Decisions Day is now just two months away! There are 55 national organizations participating, and there are state liaisons in 26 states, who are getting the word out to more and more providers each day. See the lists at: http://www.nationalhealthcaredecisionsday.org/maintopics/involved. The organizers of the day welcome even more participation: at http://www.nationalhealthcaredecisionsday.org/takeaction/join_us

A lot of new content has been added to the website. Under the "Organize your Community" tab, in addition to a variety of suggested outreach activities, you will now find ad slicks, poster templates, a community outreach PowerPointpresentation, an "Ask Me About Advance Directives" sticker template, and more. And it's all FREE. Also available are draft materials for newsletters or other publications, a sample press release, and an Op-Ed piece, to get the word out even more broadly. Go to: http://www.nationalhealthcaredecisionsday.org/takeaction/organize_community

You still have a chance to donate to the first ever NACC Silent Auction!

You still have time to craft something for the silent auction! Handmade pottery, prayer shawls, books, artwork, nonperishable regional foods, and other, yet-to-be-discovered items all are welcome.

Do you have a friend or colleague who is an artist or photographer, knitter, woodworker or basket maker? Know someone who sews or does quilting? Invite them to donate something for the NACC silent auction. Not able to attend the conference this year? You can ship your donation directly to the conference site. To donate an item or get more details about the auction contact . Help us to make this first auction a success!

CHA Audio Conference on Chaplaincy

Please note that CHA will be offering an audio conference on Feb. 20 and 22 (repeat). The title is "The Chaplain as Provider of Holistic Care".The CHA site indicates the dates/time and speaker information. Registration for the program will be available on the web. The current link on the CHA website is: http://www.chausa.org/Pub/MainNav/Events/Programs/PastoralCareAudio/.

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This e-newsletter is a publication of the National Association of Catholic Chaplains and is ©2008.

National Association of Catholic Chaplains

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