John deVelder, CPSP President, Reports on COMISS

At this year's Comiss Network annual forum held December 2-3 in Alexandria, Virginia, CPSP was represented by Beng Imm Low and me. First of all, I want to commend Beng Imm for doing a great job of networking. She not only sought out delegates to talk with about COMISS and CPSP but she was sought out by most of the delegates to find out who she was and what pastoral care organization she was representing. Other organizations were impressed with her abilities as a spokesperson for CPSP.

Second, I want to outline a few of the basics about COMISS Network for those of the community not familiar with this umbrella organization for pastoral care and counseling . COMISS stands for Congress on Ministry in Specialized Settings. It got started to link cognate groups and Denominational representatives (who endorse chaplains and pastoral counselors) to do cooperative activities and share ideas. One of the early projects was "Pastoral Care Week," which was started in the early l980's by the NACC or the Catholic Chaplains organization. COMISS may be best known for two mega-conferences known as "Dialogue '88" (held in Minneapolis) and "Dialogue '94" (held in Milwaukee) which were attempts to bring together all the cognate pastoral care and counseling groups to "dialogue" about what we have in common or could do together. Nothing much resulted from these huge conferences and at this year's forum the decision was not to go a! head with plans for a similar extravaganza in 2005. The consensus was, " Why dialogue with ourselves when we should be in dialogue with the world?"

COMISS is moving away from structural concerns to programmatic issues or mission activities that cognate groups can do together. While this may be the new emphasis for the Network, it still provides the structure for one of its commissions called JCAPS which stands for Joint Commission for Accreditation of Pastoral Services. JCAPS produces standards for chaplaincy programs in health care settings and also provides accreditation site visits for a fee. While very few chaplaincy programs have been accredited by JCAPS (perhaps due to the expense?) the Standards are coordinated with JCAHO (Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Care Organizations) and are helpful guidelines for all of us in CPSP as we make sure that our chaplaincy settings are in compliance with JCAHO standards. I encourage all CPSP chaplains, pastoral counselors, and Diplomates to read the JCAPS standards and to use them in their work places. Since CPSP has! joined COMISS Network (a result of the hard work of former CPSP President Ken Blank) we all are represented in standard 311 which reads, "The staff is certified by an appropriate national pastoral credentialing agency recognized by the COMISS Network." The so called "White Paper" tries to suggest that CPSP is not part of approved cognate groups who certify chaplains but COMISS and its JCAPS Standards clearly state otherwise.

This year's forum of COMISS gave CPSP a voice in the discussion of where the Network is going. We voted against the mega-conference in 2005 and we suggested that there are many opportunities for joint effort. We can work together on up-dating the decade old manual on pastoral care services in health care settings (edited by Larry Burton). I suggested that we could advocate among Foundations to fund sabbaticals for chaplains and pastoral counselors. We also suggested that we hold a true dialogue between North American and South American pastoral care and counseling practitioners to be scheduled for 2003 in Cuba. We in CPSP have a lot to offer the discussion of pastoral care in special settings. The urban poor and homeless as well as prisoners and mental patients are people that CPSP seeks to include in the pastoral care dialogue. I encourage all of us to join the discussion in our CPSP Chapters and to send your thoughts and ideas from the Chapters to the Council so that next year your COMISS Network representatives will continue to speak clearly for CPSP among all the cognate groups in North America.

You can find out more about COMISS Network and JCAPS by going to the website ComissNetwork.org/jcaps.