The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy is a theologically based covenant community, dedicated to "recovery of the soul" and promoting competency in the clinical pastoral field.
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On January 29th - 30th I traveled to Orlando, Florida for the American Red Cross (ARC) Spiritual Care Response Team Training (SRT) led by Earl Johnson in conjunction with the Spiritual Care Collaboration Conference (SCC).
As a conference venue, Orlando was disappointing; everything was a long distance from everything else and I spent $21 for a cup of coffee, a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice for breakfast! And getting to my room took almost as long as it took for them to allow me to check in. However, despite all that the Red Cross training was of great value to me professionally as well as personally.
This training was to prepare participants to function effectively as SRT members in leadership roles on extended mass casualty operations. The purpose was to develop the capacity of the cognate groups who attended this meeting to deploy a team of trained spiritual care professionals to catastrophic situations. Their role under the Red Cross is to coordinate, establish, and maintain the availability of appropriate spiritual care services for families affected by aviation and other transportation disasters, mass casualties, & WMD/Terrorism events.
The invited groups that participate were the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC), National Association of Catholic Chaplains (NACC), Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE), National Association of Jewish Chaplains (NAJC), International Conference of Police Chaplains (ICPC), American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC), College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy (CPSP), Federation of Fire Chaplains (FFC), and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).
Among the seventy-five trainees, CPSP sponsored six of the most diverse people in the room. I felt a true sense of pride as I named myself a member of CPSP and that pride goes further as I reflect upon all members of CPSP.
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Email Barbara McGuire
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at February 11, 2009 10:19 PM
