The ACPE Research Network seeks to foster connections among members of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education interested in research, encourage original research, and raise awareness about published research (e.g., in the health care literature and the education literature) related to spirituality, pastoral care, and Clinical Pastoral Education.

  GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS (updated August 31, 2010):

RECENT:

• The September Article-of-the-Month will be posted by the 12th. The August Article-of-the-Month highlights an evaluation of the FICA tool for spiritual assessment. Note also that the July AoM comes from Brazil and is a research-minded review that proposes diagnostic criteria for a clinical differentiation between spiritual experiences and psychoses.
   
  
• The Spring-Summer 2010 Newsletter includes an announcement of a new research initiative from the ACPE Board, a report of the Network's annual meeting in Kansas City, news of the latest research at Virginia Commonwealth University, and an update about a project on the Neuropsychology/Neuropsychiatry of Religion. Note, too, that the Winter 2010 Newsletter included updates on research in the pastoral care departments at Johns Hopkins and at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, comments by one of our readers--a nurse and life coach--about a research idea proposed in the Fall 2009 Newsletter ("A Research Question…"), and suggestions for resources on instrument development.
   
  
• Note that the section for the Ideal Intervention Paper (IIP) Project contains an updated and expanded set of Ideal Intervention Paper summaries.
   
  
• The latest annotated bibliography of Medline-indexed articles on spirituality & health, from the Pastoral Care Department at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, is now available as a searchable PDF via www.uphs.upenn.edu/pastoral/resed/bibindex.html. The bibliography for articles published during 2009 includes 384 entries.
   
  
• Internet addresses often change, and one of the challenges of maintaining a site like ours is to keep all of the links on our many pages updated. Members, please e-mail john.ehman@uphs.upenn.edu if you encounter difficulties with linked sites.

 
CONTINUING:

• HealthCare Chaplaincy (New York) has posted on its website (www.healthcarechaplaincy.org) the first five bibliographies in its Practical Bearings series --critical reviews of important books, articles and other publications on the theory and practice of pastoral care. "The Management of Care: Literature on Leadership and Organizational Development," "Discerning Patient Needs: Spiritual Assessment," "Meeting the Other: Interreligious Encounters in the Provision and Supervision of Spiritual Care," "To Want to Learn: Educational Theory for Supervision and Training," and "By Its Fruits: The Science of Health Care Chaplaincy," can be downloaded via www.healthcarechaplaincy.org/chaplaincy-research-resources/practical-bearings.html. Future issues planned for the coming months include: "Ministry Amidst Chance, Necessity, Love: Cancer and Health Care Chaplaincy," and "The Comfort of Strangers: Trends in the History and Current Practice of Health Care." Rev. Dr. Leonard Hummel, Professor of Pastoral Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, and Visiting Scholar with HealthCare Chaplaincy, spoke about these bibliographies at our October 2008 Network meeting; and he is quoted on the project website: "Practical Bearings will point professional chaplains to resources that will help them fulfill their mission in the evolving and complex world of health care." These bibliographies are not restricted to research materials, but they should be broadly valuable.
   
  
• The Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy is soliciting original research papers and literature reviews on topics of interest to chaplaincy. Full-length reports and brief reports of research may be submitted. All manuscripts should be in APA style and will be peer-reviewed. Please send manuscripts to KFlannelly@healthcarechaplaincy.org. For more on the journal, see our Spring-Summer 2009 Newsletter (§6).
   
  
• The Fetzer Institute (www.fetzer.org) has revised its website, and the link for its Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality for Use in Health Care Research has been changed (to www.fetzer.org/images/stories/pdf/MultidimensionalBooklet.pdf). The new online PDF does not contain the cover and table of contents. All links on our Network pages have been changed to reflect this new address. See especially the Articles-of-the-Month for January 2004, January 2009, and April 2003.
   
  
• Network members are invited to participate in the University of Pennsylvania Survey of Spiritual Experiences [opens in a new window], conducted by Andrew Newberg, MD, et al. For more on Dr. Newberg, see our Spring 2006 Newsletter (§6).
   
  
• The Spirituality and Health columns in the Oklahoma Health Center News (originally noted in the our Spring 2006 Newsletter, §3), written by Ken Blank and John Campbell of the Oklahoma Health Center Clinical Pastoral Education Institute, are now available on the Institute's web site (www.cpeokc.org --see the Read Columns from the OHC News section).

 
   
 

If you are a first-time visitor, please also note:

CPE Supervisors: please introduce your students to our web site, and see that they are aware of the annual Research Network awards.

This web site became operational on September 1, 2002. It will continue to evolve in response to suggestions from Network members. To submit suggestions, please directly e-mail the Network's convener at john.ehman@uphs.upenn.edu. All member correspondence is confirmed by return e-mail.

For the web site of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, click here.