The Oak Brook based system also provides home health, hospice, long term care, and mental health counseling services and operates outpatient centers, physician office buildings, and retirement centers. Advocate Health Care Clinical Pastoral Education is grounded in a person-centered approach to pastoral care. The programs are designed to encourage personal growth in a professional ministry. Students have the opportunity to develop their resources for theological integration, pastoral reflection, pastoral formation and pastoral competence. Educational Method Clinical Pastoral Education is an intensive experiential method of theological education which examines pastoral care in acute and extended care facilities.
Students begin by contracting with supervisors for learning based on their individual goals.
Individual supervision, small group discussion, and interdisciplinary dialogue are major program resources. These resources assist students to deepen their appreciation of the human predicament and to recognize the resources for ministry that reside in their unique life histories, spiritual pilgrimages, and ministry experience. The emphasis is on converting experience into learning. The peer learning group contributes both to enriched reflection upon pastoral experience and to that quality of community which supports professional growth. In turn, this enriched reflection leads to the integration of person, pastoral role, belief and knowledge.