Clinical Pastoral Education

Clinical Pastoral Education is interfaith professional education for ministry. It brings theological students, ordained clergy and qualified laypersons into supervised encounters with people in crisis.

Intense involvement with patients and family members plus feedback from peers and teachers give CPE students a new awareness of themselves and those to whom they minister.

They gain new perspectives on their ministry through theological reflections on real-life situations, and they develop skills through interpersonal and interprofessional relationships.

The CPE Program at Providence Sacred Heart is accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. and offers credit for units of CPE. One unit includes a minimum of 400 hours of clinical supervision and education.

Type of Units Offered

We currently are offering three types of programs: Extended / Hybrid, Intensive, and Residency.

We offer an Extended / Hybrid program once a year from the first week of February to mid-June for 20 weeks with 6 hours of class time a week and 16 hours of clinical/ministry per week. Students will need to find a Clinical Site with which we sign a Clinical Placement Agreement (CPA) to fulfill the required 300 hours of clinical work. The 100 hours of class/group time for this unit utilizes the online option. The tuition is $600 per unit if your clinical work is done within a Providence-affiliated location. When utilizing a non-Providence location as a clinical site, the tuition cost is $3,000 per unit of CPE. Three in-person gatherings at the Sacred Heart Medical Center (SHMC) CPE Center (each about one and one-half days in length) are also required for participation in this unit.

Intensive programs run either in the Summer (June – August) or Fall (August – November) and these units are in-person and require full-time participation with clinical work being done either at the SHMC or the Holy Family Hospital location in Spokane, WA. Tuition cost is $600 for each unit.

The Residency program is a three-unit / year-long program of CPE which is conducted in-person, requiring full-time participation with clinical work being done either at the SHMC or the Holy Family Hospital location in Spokane, WA. This program has a stipend associated with it and a pre-requisite first unit of CPE is required before an application is accepted for this program. Tuition cost is $600 for each unit.

Most of these programs fill quickly and are usually full three months in advance (if not sooner) of the program start date. Applications are therefore accepted year-round, but interviews more than likely occur beginning four months ahead of a program’s anticipated start date.

Additional Links

• ACPE Application Form
• Association for Clinical Pastoral Education website
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Admissions to CPE Units
• Financial Requirements for Clinical Pastoral Education Students
• Application Fees/Incoming Student Tuition Payments

Upcoming CPE Unit Schedule