Staff Chaplain (Full-Time - Sacred Heart Campus)

St. Luke's University Health Network • Allentown, PA

399d

About The Position

The Staff Chaplain at St. Luke's University Health Network is responsible for coordinating health care ministries, providing spiritual care services to patients, families, and staff, and supervising volunteer chaplains. This role emphasizes the importance of spiritual well-being in healthcare, ensuring that emotional and spiritual needs are met through various pastoral care activities.

Requirements

• M.Div. degree from accredited ATS school or equivalency (board certification).
• One year residency in an accredited ACPE center; two units of such training to at the Level II level in acute care context.
• Two to five years of hospital chaplaincy experience or its equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Provides pastoral care and consultation to patients, families, hospital and medical staff in individual, family and/or group context.
• Maintains daily statistics on consults/pages responded to.
• Provides appropriate referrals to members of the multidisciplinary healthcare team and to community resources and clergy.
• Performs spiritual assessment and care during pastoral visits and documents such.
• Regularly attends to hospital staff's emotional and spiritual well being.
• Provides for emergency counseling and sacramental needs; individual and unit-based.
• Coordinates and prioritizes 24-hour pastoral care delivered by the departmental staff, trainees and volunteers.
• Oversees statistical reporting of department and follow-up on individual pastoral care plans of volunteers; collaborates with coordinator of education regarding the pastoral care activities and services of trainees.
• Coordinates the development and implementation of spiritual assessment and care methods/approaches for in-patient care.
• In conjunction with the director, develops pastoral care QI surveys and studies.
• Responsible to review and collate data and recommend appropriate pastoral care adjustments, as needed.
• Promotes, maintains and supervises the department's volunteer chaplain groups, which include associate chaplains and other volunteers.
• Provides didactics, as needed, for increased professional functioning.
• Maintains current jobs descriptions for and evaluates pastoral care volunteers.
• Provides staff education and support on spiritual, ethical and emotional dimensions of health care practice.
• Develops and leads unit-based didactics regarding bereavement issues, normal grieving, etc.
• Encourages unit-based case review for ethical dilemmas.
• Raises staff's awareness, via education, of spiritual needs of patients, families and themselves.
• Provides supervision regarding direct pastoral care activities.
• Provides didactic seminars, as requested, by coordinator of education and/or CPE trainees.
• Provides conjoint visitation.
• Remains current with literature on pastoral issues and spiritual assessment.
• Participates in hospital committees relevant to patient care.
• Maintains working knowledge regarding organ donations, Pennsylvania Self-Determination Act and ethical dilemmas; Ethics Committee, Nursing Ethics, Decisions of Life.
• Identifies concerns and formulates method to address pastoral care concerns in ICU and critical care subcommittee.
• Demonstrates a capacity to access appropriate information from patient's chart as part of spiritual assessment and a capacity to add the Pastoral Care Treatment Plan and notes to the chart.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Paid holidays
• Professional development opportunities

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Industry: Hospitals
• Education Level: Master's degree