Clinical Pastoral Education Program Opportunities

WakeMed's Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program offers ministers, seminarians, and laity the opportunity to be placed directly in supervised settings of ministry, receive feedback on their ministry, and learn about themselves through the relationships with supervisors and peers in a dynamic process. WakeMed is accredited to offer Level I and II and Supervisory Clinical Pastoral Education by The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc.

Opportunities Available:

At WakeMed there is the opportunity to either do Hospital or Urban Ministry based Clinical Pastoral Education. In both settings there patients/clients and families who are experiencing crisis situations. The various skills learned through interaction with patients/clients and families are valuable to each participant's individual ministry.

The Hospital based unit offers the possibility of participating in both crisis ministry and healthcare ministry. In crisis ministry there is opportunity to learn the skills of crisis counseling and to evaluate how crisis affects people spiritually and emotionally. With healthcare ministry on a day-to-day basis one sees how dealing with health concerns impacts the patient and family members and how spiritual and emotional care effects these process. Both crisis and healthcare ministry provide opportunities to increase ministry skills and to look how one's own dynamics impede or enhance the pastoral care given.

The Urban Ministry CPE student is invited into a journey into his or her own life story. Such a dynamic supervisory process provides an opportunity for in-depth insight and self-understanding that is translated into a rich ability to identify with the "least of these." In so doing one is able to offer care and pastoral counseling as a clinically trained pastor to those who have lost their way and who have been broken by life and relationship failures. The placements include but are not limited to: The Open Door Medical Clinic, Helen Wright Women's Shelter, South Salisbury St. Men's Shelter, AIDS Service Alliance- Carolinas, and addiction treatment facilities.

Options for completing Level I/II units of Clinical Pastoral Education in either the Hospital or Urban Ministry setting:

We offer Summer CPE Units lasting for 10/11 weeks based on the traditional CPE curriculum that involve a 40 hour week.

We have two Extended Units of CPE that run for 16 weeks. Groups meet one full day each week with an additional 8-10 hours per week visiting patients/clients, plus on call rotating rotation. They are offered in August/September to December and January to May.

WakeMed has a year long CPE residency which runs from September 1-August 31. This is a stipend position with hospital benefits. The residency is made up of 3 units of Clinical Pastoral Education. To be accepted into the Residency, one must complete at least one Level 1 unit of Clinical Pastoral Education