Board Certification—Professional Chaplain

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( The Board Certification credential is for chaplains who have completed Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Non-CPE candidates must complete a different application for the Certified Professional Chaplain (CPC) credential. Go here for more information and an application for CPC).

The World Spiritual Health Organization (WSHO) is the premier organization for exceptional chaplains who are consummate professionals in spiritual care and counseling, and whose personal and professional lives demonstrate superior character, competence and compassion within an interfaith, intercultural, and interdisciplinary context. WSHO CPE programs and training curricula are unique, contemporary, and “tested and proven” over years of experience and praxis in the field.  

WSHO asserts that professional competency in itself is insufficient, and must always be built upon the foundation of character and compassion. 

Chaplains who are board certified through WSHO represent the highest standards of professional chaplaincy anywhere in the world. Employers, and even clients, are pleased to learn that our standards attract only the highest quality chaplains. For instance, WSHO chaplains not only undergo a rigorous board certification process that incorporates personal character, professional competence and skillful compassion, but also go through an extensive background check to ensure WSHO chaplains are bondable. 

We also believe credibility comes through accountability, and in order to maintain quality assurance in WSHO, our board certified chaplains must also successfully pass an annual review process supervised by WSHO leaders in order to retain their board certification credential.  

To keep our chaplains on ‘the cutting edge’ of effective ministry and care, and to avoid compassion fatigue, as well as to meet ongoing professional needs and interests, our board certified chaplains are encouraged to form and to meet regularly in WSHO chapters throughout the world. In these WSHO chapters, chaplains benefit from maintaining support, camaraderie, peer consultation and accountability to and for one another similar to a “battle-buddy system.” 

WSHO boldly espouses correct principles over political correctness. We believe in doing what is right and standing up for truth, freedom, mercy and justice. We vigilantly guard against pride, pharisaism, cronyism and corruption, and diligently protect, through policy and practice, against secularized and/or clinical bureaucracy devoid of principled values and accountability.  

“All to the glory of God.”  

We intentionally put all things spiritual first and foremost in what we do as noted in our WSHO mission statement: “Spirituality: Where it is alive, sustain it. Where it is dormant, revive it; Where it is absent, invite it.”  

To be a board certified Professional Chaplain by WSHO is indicative of chaplaincy at its very best. To be considered, please complete application and provide all documentation required. 

1. Master Board Certified Professional Clinical Chaplain (MBCC) — Master’s Degree or higher, five quarters of CPE, or four quarters of CPE plus equivalency of 500 post-CPE supervised clinical hours 
2. Board Certified Professional Clinical Chaplain (BCC) — Master’s Degree or higher and five quarters of CPE or four quarters of CPE plus equivalency of 500 post-pe supervised clinical hours  
3. Associate Board Certified Professional Clinical Chaplain  (ABCC) — Bachelor’s Degree and four quarters of CPE or Master’s Degree and two quarters of CPE (for Chaplain or Clinically Trained Clergy) 
4. Certified Professional Chaplain (CPC) — Academic degree or acceptable equivalency, two years of pastoral experience i.e. volunteer chaplain, etc.

• Spiritually-centered 
• Character strong 
• Emotionally healthy 
• Clinically competent 
• Inter-faith friendly, multi-cultural sensitive, and diversity welcoming 

• Utilize the Action-Reflection model of learning and, thereby, interpret and utilize human experience both clinically and spiritually.  
• Use one’s self as the primary “tool” in the provision of spiritual care and counseling.   
• Be keenly aware of issues of Transference and Counter-transference, and to utilize these for effective caregiving and avoiding the cause of harm. 
• Boldly and therapeutically care-front people. 
• Identify and acknowledge, and to explore and utilize “material presented” from the emotional, relational and spiritual dimensions, i.e. “emotional emeralds, relationship rubies and spiritual sapphires.” 
• Provide spiritual care in an interfaith context; namely, to provide public and private prayer, to provide or facilitate faith-specific and non-denominational worship services, and to officiate and conduct funeral/memorial services and weddings. 
• Utilize the clinical methodology of learning and processing ministry encounters; namely, ability to provide and receive feedback and utilize peer consultation and supervisor mentoring for personal and professional improvement of self and skill set. 
• Spiritually triage and make a spiritual assessment, spiritual diagnosis and care-plan. 
• Proactively foster and maintain a healthy and relational spiritual bond with people from a diversity of faith traditions, including the unchurched. 
• Demonstrate “competent compassion” with a diversity of people in a variety of settings through basic care and therapeutic skills; namely, healing presence and empathy, listening and problem analysis, conflict resolution and spiritual healing. 
• Objectively explore and articulate one’s own spiritual journey and faith orientation. 
• Understand, recognize and utilize group dynamics for optimum learning and growth, healing and integration of clinical skills.
• Effectively adapt, integrate and serve within the context of an interdisciplinary team. 
• Ability to utilize theories, concepts and skills from the behavioral sciences for optimum ministry effectiveness.
• Utilize one’s personal and spiritual authority to provide spiritual leadership. 
• Introduce, integrate and facilitate spirituality, as well as morale, with individuals, groups, organizations/institutions.
• Demonstrate character, moral courage and honor in personal and professional matters. 
• Sustain, revive, and invite the spiritual dimension in a secular milieu. 

GO TO APPLICATION >

For more information, contact us at wshomembership@gmail.com