The CCS Competency Model for Chaplaincy
An evidence-based framework helping institutions align chaplaincy education, training, hiring, supervision, and professional development with the realities of contemporary practice.
Professional chaplaincy is practiced across hospitals, hospices, universities, military settings, correctional institutions, congregations, and community organizations. Yet the field has often lacked one shared, research-informed way to describe what competent practice requires across these diverse contexts. The Center for Chaplaincy Studies developed the CCS Competencies to help address that gap. Built from existing chaplaincy standards and validated through a survey of 353 practicing chaplains, the framework offers institutions a clearer map for understanding, teaching, assessing, and strengthening chaplaincy practice.
Chaplaincy has Changed. Institutions Need Clearer Language for the Work.
Modern Chaplains are often working inside complex, pluralistic, interdisciplinary institutions where spiritual care intersects with documentation, crisis response, grief care, family systems, trauma, moral distress, interfaith understanding, professional ethics, and institutional collaboration. The CCS Competency Model gives educators, CPE programs, healthcare systems, and hiring organizations shared language for that complexity. It helps institutions move from broad descriptions of chaplaincy toward a clearer understanding of what competent practice requires in real settings.
Built from the Field. Tested with the Field.
The CCS Competencies were developed through a multi-phase research process designed to bring greater coherence to a fragmented professional landscape. The research team analyzed and synthesized existing competency standards from major professional chaplaincy organizations and sector-specific frameworks, then organized the findings into a unified structure of 36 competencies across six domains of care. The framework was then tested through a national survey of 353 practicing chaplains, who rated each competency according to its importance to chaplaincy practice, frequency of use in their work, and degree of preparation through graduate theological education.
