Abstract
Chaplains frequently serve as first responders for United States military personnel experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The Chaplains-CARE Program, a self-paced, e-learning course grounded in suicide-focused cognitive behavioral therapy principles, was tailored for United States military chaplains to enhance their suicide intervention skills. A pilot program evaluation gathered 76 Department of Defense (DoD), Veterans Affairs (VA), and international military chaplain learners’ responses. Most learners indicated that the course was helpful, easy to use, relevant, applicable, and that they were likely to recommend it to other chaplains. Based on open-ended responses, one-quarter (25.0%) of learners indicated that all content was useful, and over one-quarter (26.3%) of learners highlighted the usefulness of the self-care module. One-third (30.3%) of learners reported the usefulness of the interactive e-learning features, while others (26.3%) highlighted the usefulness of chaplains’ role play demonstrations, which portrayed counseling scenarios with service members. Suggested areas of improvement include specific course adaptation for VA chaplains and further incorporation of experiential learning and spiritual care principles. The pilot findings suggest that Chaplains-CARE Online was perceived as a useful suicide intervention training for chaplains. Future training can be enhanced by providing experiential, simulation-based practice of suicide intervention skills.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the DoD and VA chaplains for their valuable feedback. The USU team would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of the Office of the Chief of Chaplains of the United States Navy, the Navy Chaplaincy Research Community of Interest, and the chaplain supervisors and learners who participated in and refined the Chaplains-CARE Program: Chaplain (CDR) Raynard Allen, Chaplain (CAPT) David Bynum, Chaplain (CAPT) Bill Cantrell, Chaplain (LCDR) Pat Coley, Chaplain (CAPT) James Denley, Chaplain (LT) Jamil Khan, Chaplain (CDR) LeRoy Mack III, Chaplain (CDR) Judy Malana. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Val G. Hemming Simulation Center at USU for their collaboration. We would also like to acknowledge our partnership with Empathos Resources to develop the online version of Chaplains-CARE. We would like to thank the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) at USU and MilLife Learning for their support in hosting Chaplains-CARE Online. Finally, we would like to thank the Suicide Care, Prevention, and Research (CPR) Initiative associates who contributed to the Chaplains-CARE Program. The Chaplains-CARE Program was supported by the Defense Suicide Prevention Office (DSPO; HU00011920100).
Funding
The Chaplains-CARE Program was supported by the Defense Suicide Prevention Office (DSPO) under grant HU00011920100.
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Lee-Tauler, S.Y., Grammer, J., LaCroix, J.M. et al. Pilot Evaluation of the Online ‘Chaplains-CARE’ Program: Enhancing Skills for United States Military Suicide Intervention Practices and Care. J Relig Health 62, 3856–3873 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01882-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01882-9