Chaplaincy Case Study with Community Partners South Florida
The Community Transformation Center, in partnership with faculty from Baylor University*, conducted a pilot study examining the role of chaplains in community-based social service settings. The project placed chaplain interns at a transitional housing facility operated by Community Partners South Florida (CPSFL), the largest behavioral health provider in Palm Beach County, located in West Palm Beach’s historic northwest neighborhood.
CTC students served as full members of the clinical care team, providing support to both clients and staff. The qualitative case study explored whether chaplains or spiritual care providers could be integral to clinical models in non-profit social service contexts—spaces that often respond to public health crises but where staff typically receive little training in addressing spiritual needs.
Community-based social service organizations are often the first responders to public health crises. Most clinically trained mental health practitioners, however, receive little training in spirituality and religion and express some discomfort in addressing these issues with their clients, and their commitment to scientific, empirically-based approaches may prevent them from considering religion and spirituality in their treatment plans. Those receiving services, on the other hand, demonstrate a desire to explore spirituality in conjunction with their care. This creates a significant gap in the care provided by community-based mental health counselors and clinical social workers.
Considering this gap in service and the potential for improved outcomes, chaplains and spiritual care providers are particularly primed to step into these spaces. While chaplaincy is inherently institutional, the types of human service organizations that have attended to spiritual care needs are primarily limited to healthcare and crisis-response settings (hospital, hospice, police, fire, disaster relief, etc.). Community-based chaplaincy in non-profit settings, however, has only been noted in sparse and disconnected ways, and robust studies demonstrating the need and efficacy of an interdisciplinary approach to holistic care are limited outside traditional healthcare settings. Research in healthcare settings, though, shows a positive relationship between social workers and chaplains, yet few have intentionally pushed this into clinical social settings like community-based non-profit organizations. Chaplaincy is a growing and expanding field and continues to garner more attention in the academy and pastoral training for community transformation.
The study laid the groundwork for future research across similar organizations throughout Southeast Florida’s tri-county region: Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties.
*This project brings together an interdisciplinary team in theology, chaplaincy and social work from Palm Beach Atlantic University’s School of Ministry, the Community Transformation Center, Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, the George W. Truett Theological Seminary and the Center for Church and Community Impact.
