Agency for Pastoral Education, Care, and Counseling Services (APECCS)

Thank you for your interest in Agency for Pastoral Education, Care and Counseling Services (APECCS). We know there are many choices available for your CPE training. This site is to designed to provide some general information about Clinical Pastoral Education and our particular program and setting. We trust you will find the information helpful as you consider your training options. In the end we believe you will be personally and professionally enriched by experience.

The purpose of this agency is to engage in [1] research, [2] education and training, [3] pastoral care and counseling, and [4] the empowerment of individuals and institutions in the enterprise and the practice of ministry. We practice a philosophy of respect for and value of all of God’s people as having worth and meaning. We commit ourselves to fostering the well being of all people, and especially the marginal and powerless people of society, through the principles of honesty, justice, and benevolence.

We do not expect to save the world; however we recognize that many people desire the benefits of pastoral care through the process of worship, and are uncomfortable pursuing the needs, hopes, and opportunities for worship. Using the process of Clinical Pastoral Education, we address the issues of worship and pastoral care, by placing our students in a variety of agencies which are dedicated to serving the poor and needy, the homeless, the addicted, those living with HIV/AIDS and other debilitating situations. It is not just this population that we are called by God to serve; we also serve the elderly, feeble, and those challenged by constant changes of life. CPE students cover clinical settings which often cannot afford the cost of pastoral care, but which are eager to receive the presence and relationship of the associates.

While serving the needs of marginalized people with pastoral care, we practice student-centered education. This means that we make every effort to accommodate students who may have difficulty getting themselves free for the four hundred or more hours that are necessary to complete a unit of CPE. This means that we will do everything we can to accommodate students’ schedules, as long as the students can commit to putting in twenty hours a week of CPE education in order to maintain the standards of ACPE. Availability is not the only issue with which students struggle. Some students are lay people who may be working; some may not have adequate financial resources to engage in CPE. We have encouraged congregations to support lay persons in the CPE process and we ourselves have been willing to extend financial help by such means as spreading CPE tuition payments out over a period of time; we have in some cases made grants or scholarships available for persons who are financially needy. We have developed contractual agreements with students, so that they can do most of their clinical work at a location closer to their homes in order to minimize travel.