Franciscan Alliance Inc. has received two grants to establish a Clinical Pastoral Education program in regions within its 13-hospital system.
Our Sunday Visitor has provided $22,000 and the Koch Foundation $10,000, for a pilot program to be launched at Franciscan St. Francis Health-Indianapolis, with hopes of expansion throughout the system in coming years.
Clinical Pastoral Education is designed to offer hands-on training to postgraduate students in a clinical setting to provide training toward becoming certified members of pastoral care teams.
It has been the standard for training hospital chaplains for decades and is considered the benchmark in the field.
Our Sunday Visitor was established in 1912 and is one of the largest English-language Catholic publishers in the world, with more than 1,800 textbooks, parish resources and trade books in print as well as a Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, available in print and on the Internet.
The Koch Foundation was established in 1979 by Carl and Paula Koch to fund Catholic-faith evangelization activities throughout the world. From small beginnings, it has become one of the largest organizations of its kind in the U.S.