Chaplain

City of Hope•Duarte, CA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The chaplain is a professionally-trained individual who provides inter-faith spiritual care, counseling and guidance to patients, families and, as appropriate, City of Hope staff members. Chaplains provide expert spiritual assessments and care plans, which integrate a person’s existential, spiritual and emotional well-being into medical plans, improve quality of care and enhance patient experiences. Chaplains provide cultural competency education to medical teams, enabling ethical and respectful engagement with families whose religious or spiritual beliefs may complicate adherence to medical recommendations. Additionally, chaplains provide regularly programmed support to front line staff as well as impromptu debriefing and/or support to teams as needed. This individual actively works, within a multidisciplinary team, to ensure optimal delivery of spiritual care and both participates in and occasionally leads performance improvement initiatives. It is expected that the individual who holds this position is able to actively participate with colleagues in constructive problem-solving, program development, as well as to create and facilitate innovative and impactful support programs for patients, caregivers and staff. The Department of Supportive Care Medicine and the Sheri & Les Biller Patient and Family Resource Center utilize a staff leadership model and every employee is expected to take a leadership role in the department. Staff will also be expected to actively participate in marketing, educational and group programs, program development and fundraising efforts, and outreach to patients, families, other City of Hope departments and the community.

Requirements

Masters in Divinity or equivalent
2 years spiritual care counseling experience in hospital or hospice setting
4 units CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education)

Responsibilities

Provides timely, appropriate and respectful spiritual care services to patients and families of all faiths and belief systems.
Uses an interfaith approach with religious and cultural sensitivity to diverse belief needs when presented with requests for chaplain services of any faith.
Delivers care in a manner consistent with the standards of the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC).
Exercises skill in spiritual crisis management to assist patients in coping with cancer in all of its phases: diagnosis, living with cancer, recurrence, end-of-life, and survivorship.
Acts effectively as a liaison for appropriate referrals to other services including social work, psychiatry, psychology, supportive medicine (including palliative care) and medical management.
Guides patient and families through end-of-life spiritual issues specifically to enable patients to make critical and ethical end-of-life decisions, congruent with their belief system.
Offers developmentally age-appropriate spiritual support to pediatric patients and demonstrates skill in working with families/caretakers of pediatric patients, if assigned to Pediatrics.