What is a Chaplain?

I’ve learned that many people aren’t familiar with what a Chaplain is or what we do—even I wasn’t too familiar before I began my training to be one!

A Chaplain is trained to provide emotional and spiritual support for people of any faith tradition, or none at all. The care we give is centered around the people we are serving, not around us and our beliefs. Chaplaincy is rooted in Christianity, but has come to be a neutral spiritual care role. Our own spiritual traditions are what support us personally, we aren’t working to “convert” or “proselytize” our patients/clients. There are some times when our beliefs happen to align with the people we serve, and we may use that as a point of connection to support them. 

We often counsel people and/or work in crisis situations. The work we do is therapeutic, but is not “therapy” and we are not diagnosing mental health disorders. In health care settings, we may collaborate with a social worker to support a patient and their family. There are some overlapping qualities to those methods of support, but we may be viewing them through differing lenses. 

Depending on the setting where a Chaplain serves, we may provide religious or spiritual services. We often pray with people, connecting to their beliefs as a basis for the prayer. We may facilitate meditation, which as a Buddhist is an area I have additional training around. Each Chaplain has their own unique skills and specialties.  

We often serve people facing end-of-life situations, as well as their loved ones. Bereavement and grief support are an area many Chaplains have trained to work in. This is an area I feel particularly connected to and spent a lot of my hospital residency training working around. 

We are professionals, and as chaplaincy as a profession seeks to be more consistent in training, the industry standard asks that we complete master’s degrees (often in Divinity), as well as on-the-job clinical training hours as part of our national accreditation process. The Association of Professional Chaplains is a great resource to learn more about chaplaincy in the U.S. Evidence-based research is an increasingly important part of professional chaplaincy. Transforming Chaplaincy is a think tank promoting research literacy in the field, in order to improve patient outcomes.