Innovations in Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care Unit

The Innovations in Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care Unit gathers scholars, educators, researchers, and spiritual care providers to explore chaplaincy in both traditional and emerging settings. We invite individual paper proposals or roundtable proposals that explore a variety of perspectives and locations. In reviewing proposals, we will prioritize some papers which offer practical solutions, tools, and models that attendees could bring home with them and implement in their contexts. In 2026 we are particularly interested in the Presidential theme “Future(s)” and/or the following topics: 

• Economic Justice and Job Security for Chaplains: Spiritual care has proven value, and employers should value chaplains by stopping the practice of firing them when budgets get tight. How can chaplains successfully advocate for job security and a living wage, particularly in light of insurance, policy, and political factors driving institutional decision making? If past advocacy and justification for hiring have highlighted chaplain roles in relation to DEI rights and representation within institutions, what happens in a political climate that denies the value of DEI? In a downsizing, how can chaplains avoid being seen as redundant with psychology and social work staffing and therefore expendable? How do we work to care for those embedded in institutions that do not value care? Is there data that is emergent or needed that could better inform this fight? Share what has worked in your settings and the strategies, research, or practices that speak to the C-Suite in terms that matter, or that pilot new economic models for chaplaincy in any setting.
   
• Seminar for Applied Practice of Chaplaincy/Spiritual Care: 
  Participants in this roundtable will submit a short chaplaincy/spiritual care verbatim or case study in advance of the conference, and then discuss each other’s encounters during the conference session, engaging in witnessed theological reflection, illumination of distinctive assessment and intervention practices, consultation, and expansion of our scope and skills together. This roundtable at once models for students, early career chaplains, researchers, and graduate school faculty how clinical cases are mined for insights and fruitfully and respectfully discussed, while providing experienced professionals opportunity to present an interesting case for support and diversified insights into their praxis from outside their own clinical or community contexts, contributing to professional development. 
  To join this session, which will be formed into a roubtable by the unit co-chairs and reviewed by the steering committee, submit a proposal that includes:
  • a brief synopsis (1-2 paragraphs) of the encounter you would submit in a longer format (for AAR panelist and attendee access) if accepted
  • a brief statement of why you would be a good respondent to others’ verbatim/cases
  • a brief statement of what you hope to learn from others’ responses to your case, and
  • a commitment to email your verbatim or case study in early October to roundtable participants and a commitment to read the cases of the other panelists before coming to AAR.
• Climate, Ecological, Animal, and Interspecies Chaplaincy:  Chaplains are forging roles for spiritual care amid the climate emergency, in caring for the more than human world, in chaplaincy for animals and pets, in veterinary chaplaincy, and interspecies chaplaincy. We invite such chaplains to share the needs they are meeting, the interventions or practices in their toolkits, the spiritual worldviews in which they are rooted, and how one might train for and create a livelihood in this form of chaplaincy.
• Graduate and Clinical Education pedagogy generally, with potential specific focus on: identifying and overcoming barriers to entry and successful completion of degree and clinical programs; what chaplaincy training rooted in specific religious traditions uniquely contribute to the spiritual formation of future chaplains and/or to models of caregiving; pedagogy foundations; etc.
• An invited panel on Josh Morris’ forthcoming A Practical Theology of Pediatric Chaplaincy: Critical Contexts for Care (Orbis 2026)
• Pagan chaplaincy
• In a co-sponsored session with the SBL Unit Biblical Studies and Spiritual Care: Intersections of Pastoral Praxis and Biblical Hermeneutics we welcome papers offering practice-based insights to biblical texts from chaplains who have served in the military or who work with service members or veterans.  

We welcome papers on topics related to chaplaincy and spiritual care including but not limited to: training and educational pathways for work in these fields, the interfaith aspects of chaplaincy and spiritual care, models for interfaith spiritual care that emerge out of a specific religious, theological, or historical tradition, research on chaplaincy and spiritual care in a variety of settings including prisons, hospitals, the military, universities, and businesses, and expanding to political movements and other growing sectors for chaplaincy, navigating difference in spiritual care along lines of race, sexuality, gender identity, class, religious tradition, and experience. The above topics are simply a glimpse at the wide breadth of possible topics. Our unit is interested in cutting-edge research and critical reflection on the fields of chaplaincy and spiritual care from both scholars and practitioners. We remain open to other papers or roundtable proposals on chaplaincy in all its forms and settings.  We encourage diverse and active attendance in our conference sessions and business meeting; if you wish to be involved further, please contact the co-chairs.