Spiritual Care Collaborative (SCC) Steering Committee provides the following statement regarding the announcement that the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC) decided to discontinue its participation in the SCC.

The APC posted on their website the announcement, “APC Discontinues SCC Participation but Remains Committed to Collaboration,” that also provided reasons for its decision: The APC, along with five other groups, formed a Limited Liability Corporation in 2007 in order to hold a joint conference. Another joint conference is not scheduled in the near future, and the SCC has no specific goals, outcomes or joint projects in the horizon. The APC board determined it was not a good use of organizational funds, or volunteer and staff resources, to continue to pay the yearly dues of SCC or participate in monthly conference calls. (source)

The SCC is a young entity (LLC approved in December 2007) that grew out of the Council of Collaboration. Its Bylaws state the SCC mission as: “an international group of organizations actively collaborating to advance excellence in professional pastoral and spiritual care, counseling, education and research.” Its vision is to be “a forum for providing a collective voice to promote the highest standards of professional practice and to advance the field of professional spiritual care.”

In January 2008 the SCC Steering Committee (comprised of up to three representatives of each founding organization, usually the Board chair and chair-elect and executive director) gathered in Chicago, and dedicated time to share with one another their respective strategic plans and priorities. It helped us get to know one another better as associations and the challenges we faced individually and collectively. Most of 2008 was devoted to preparing for the 2009 SCC Summit in Orlando. It was an intensive but energizing time as we learned to work with one another on this remarkable venture, and we gained even more respect for one another through the process.

February 2, 2009, during the 2009 Summit, the SCC Steering Committee met again. We had an honest and open dialogue with many important questions being raised. The outcomes of that meeting were that we:

• Reached consensus on reaffirming the SCC mission to advocacy and collaboration that would "provide a common voice for professional pastoral care, counseling and education organizations in the United States and Canada. Our goal is to speak with a unified voice as clinically trained, qualified pastoral/spiritual caregivers who serve as chaplains, pastoral educators and counselors in specialized settings including hospitals and other healthcare organizations, military, prisons, and the business workplace." (SCC website)
• Agreed upon two goals: Advocacy and Collaborative and Cooperative Visioning.
• Committed to identifying priority projects that would advance our mission, but agreed that we need to conclude the work of the Summit, review the economics, and then determine who needs to come together to propose next steps.

As we all know and experienced, 2009 was a very challenging year for our associations as our members and the institutions they worked for were impacted (and remain impacted) by the tough economy. The monthly calls of the SCC Steering Committee were listening sessions among our leaders to gain further understanding of our respective association’s members’ challenges. We spent time learning how our respective associations were advocating for healthcare reform, where we could join together in that advocacy, and where we could partner or how we were partnering with each other on projects. As part of our mission to be a collective voice, we also reviewed and affirmed the work of APC on its Standards of Professional Practice for Acute Care and the NACC Leadership Competencies for Pastoral Care.

In February 2010 the SCC Steering Committee met again to reflect on the mission and direction of SCC. We reaffirmed the mission of SCC, and set some short term (six months) goals to be completed in 2010 with plans to meet in early 2011 for setting longer term goals. These short-term goals included such items as: revisions to the SCC charter, the dues structure, and inclusion of other groups in SCC, along with beginning the project of reviewing our Common Standards that had been adopted in 2004. Over the past months most of these short term goals have been met, and we have a task force that is in the process of completing the review of the Common Standards for the Certification of Chaplains, with plans to review the other Common Standards. We will be meeting in early 2011 to again set goals, while continuing to work on the review of the Common Standards.

The SCC remains a very valuable arena for communication and dialogue among its members to gain perspectives on the spiritual and pastoral care environment, and the broader cultural, economic, and social arenas within which we work. The remaining SCC participating associations continue to be committed to the mission of SCC to actively collaborate to “advance excellence in professional pastoral and spiritual care, counseling, education and research,” and the vision to be “a forum for providing a collective voice to promote the highest standards of professional practice and to advance the field of professional spiritual care.”