School Chaplains or Pastoral Workers

The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, announced the National School Chaplaincy Programme during October 2006. As we near the end of 2007, the programme is being successfully rolled out. The programme provides Federal funding for school communities to assist meet the cost of employing a school chaplain. The Federal Australian government will provide $55Million over three years. Schools can receive funding of up to $20,000. The Department of Education, Science and Training administer the scheme. Details are available here.

The programme aims to:

assist school communities…support the spiritual wellbeing of their students, including strengthening values, provide greater pastoral care and enhance engagement with the broader community.

This is clearly a counsellors role. There is nothing wrong with that. The chaplains will also provide:

general religious and personal advice, comfort and support to all students and staff, regardless of their religious denomination, irrespective of their religious beliefs.

Perhaps that is going a little too far. Or perhaps not, because student participation is voluntary (I think in the context of primary schools that means it is up to parents to decide).

School communities also decide what religion the chaplain will be from. That doesn’t mean denominations of particular religions but rather the ‘religion at large’. For example, most of the positions advertised ask for the person to be “Christian”. This raises interesting questions given the diversity of “Christian” beliefs and practices. Even some “Christians” might object to the appointment of a chaplain with connections to any particular denomination. Would, for example, Catholics be happy if the chaplain was a Bush Baptist.

The idea chaplains are useful in schools is not new. Private schools are long-time users of school chaplains. Dr Judy Salecich’s PhD thesis examined the need for school Chaplains. She comments that:

Chaplaincy is about community development — local people identifying the needs of young people and families in their community and mobilizing community resources to meet these needs.

Dr Salecich seems to onto something here when she says it is about community development. Salecich believes:

Modern society suffers from a lack of God-consciousness and chaplaincy is one way in which communities are trying to redress that, to bring a reality of God closer to young people. A chaplain does this by building relationships with people and modelling his or her Christian faith in the school context

I am not sure that I want ‘God-concisenesses’ raising for my children. I have no problem with the ‘counselling’ role chaplains might play – as long as participation by students is voluntary AND the chaplain has recognised professional qualifications. But religion and State were separated for very good reasons long ago.

We already know that most school chaplains spend most of their time in a pastoral role rather than teaching religious beliefs.

Despite the Federal scheme being called the National School Chaplaincy Programme, there is some doubt that these people are chaplains. The word ‘chaplain’ implies at least some formal training. In South Australia, the agreement between the Department of Education & Children’s Services and the Schools Ministry Group disallows the use of the word ‘chaplain’ and instead mandates using ‘Christian Pastoral Support Worker’ (CPSW). Although this smacks a little of double-speak, the choice of terms is all about the implications of using the word ‘chaplain’. Community understanding is that a ‘chaplain’ has the requisite formal training and qualifications to fulfil the role. CPSWs are perhaps not formally trained or might not have formal qualifications.

I return again to the idea that student participation is voluntary. I think this is the key to the issue at stake. I would like to see professionally qualified counsellors in schools rather than lay-people. That is not to say some lay-people aren’t good counsellors – I am sure many are. I would prefer to take my child to a professional counsellor outside of the school environment, should the need arise. And my choice wouldn’t be based on any religious affiliation.

Let’s keep religion out of our State schools.