CS254 CPE "Ministry Practicum" and CL663 "Elective CPE"

What is CPE? Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is a program of professional and theological education for ministry.

CPE involves reflection on clinical experience within a structure of organized supervision. Essential elements include an accredited CPE center ready to receive students, certified CPE supervisors to provide pastoral supervision, a small group of peers engaged in a common learning experience to provide pastoral care to people in crisis, detailed reporting of pastoral practice, a specific time period, and an individual learning contract.

Students in CPE are challenged to develop genuine, caring pastoral relationships as they interact with supervisors, other students, other professionals, and people in crisis. New insights and understandings of the human situation will be gained by observing complicated life situations from different viewpoints. Written case studies and verbatims, individual supervision, seminar participation, and relevant reading aid in integrating theology with life experiences.

CPE can be either a full time unit (usually ten weeks, 40 hours per week) or an extended unit (400 hours done in a variety of ways). A packet of information pertaining to CPE at United is available from the Contextual Studies Secretary, Vi Keller. More information is available from the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education at the ACPE web site; the ACPE is the primary accrediting agency for CPE. Students may also satisfy UTS's CPE requirement through a unit of CPE accredited by the National Association of Catholic Chaplains (NACC).

How do I begin the CPE application process?

Students need to be accepted into a particular CPE program at an accredited Center before they can register for credit at United. The arrangements for taking a unit of CPE are made primarily between the student and the institutional setting in which it occurs. Students are encouraged to consult with the CPE coordinator at United, Joseph Bush, before beginning the process.

Application forms and a directory listing CPE Centers are available on the acpe web site. The directory provides contact information for the Centers, and students are encouraged to contact the Centers directly to learn about the kinds of CPE units being offered and the scheduling of those units. Different Centers offer experience of pastoral care in different kinds of care-giving contexts, e.g. trauma, gerontology, pediatrics, etc. Students should begin early to explore the possibilities of CPE and to make application. Applications for summer units, for instance, should be sent to the centers in December and January.

The total length of an application is normally from seven to ten pages. Copies of the completed application should be sent to three or four CPE centers chosen from the directory. Follow up your application with a telephone call to the supervisor to arrange an interview as part of the application process. Notify Joseph Bush, the CPE coordinator at United, when you have been accepted into a program.

What about registration and payment?

It is necessary to register at United with the Registrar after one is accepted into a CPE program. In addition to United's regular process of registration requiring an advisor's signature, registration for CPE also requires completing a form providing additional information, such as the location of the CPE Center and the name of the CPE supervisor. Those forms are available from Vi Keller, from the registrar, or may be downloaded here. UTS registration form for CPE

That registration form also gives steps for the payment procedure. In short, a student pays for tuition at United as he or she normally would, and United forwards to the CPE Center most of the student's tuition for the CPE course in order to cover some or all of that student's fees at the CPE Center.

How do I report in when finished? --the final 'project'

There are two ways of registering for academic credit at United for CPE. One way is simply to take a unit of CPE as a 3 credit hour elective (CL663). The other way is to satisfy the contextual studies requirement (CS254) for M.Div. students. Students taking CPE as an elective (CL663) simply turn their final evaluations in to United's CPE coordinator, Joseph Bush, at the conclusion of their units in order to receive academic credit.

Students satisfying the contextual studies requirement by taking CPE as CS254 are also required to do a "ministry practicum project" reflecting on their experience of CPE. Guidelines for this project refer to three "models" from which students might choose. Sometimes, this project consists of a special research project focusing on one issue/assignment/event. Usually, though, students merely compile an organized notebook or portfolio containing relevant materials from their CPE experience.

The portfolio should contain such materials as: the initial CPE application, learning goals, mid-unit evaluations, final evaluations (both the supervisor's evaluation and the student's self-evaluation), and copies of verbatims, critical incident reports, etc. that have been a part of the CPE learning process. Once United's CPE coordinator has been able to examine this project, he meets with the student to debrief the experience and to discuss it in the larger contexts of formation for ministry and discernment of vocation.