Facilitator: Chaplain Melanie Childers
Overview: While many counseling interventions require advanced training and certification, others are quite accessible to a wider audience and could be useful tools in the chaplain’s repertoire. This course will focus on understanding and developing the skills and techniques involved in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing, for enhancing chaplaincy strategies and interventions.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will develop a working understanding of three counseling modalities that have implications for chaplaincy.
- Participants will be able to explain how to interrupt the anxiety cycle by replacing defeating thoughts.
- Participants will have a working knowledge of the 10 most common cognitive distortions.
- Participants will be able to explain the transtheoretical model of change and apply it to supporting care receivers.
Facilitator: Melanie Childers is Director of Pastoral Care at Watauga Medical Center in Boone, NC, where she has served since 1998. She is a North Carolina native with a bachelor’s degree in communications, a Master of Divinity, and a Master of Arts in community counseling. She is a board-certified chaplain, endorsed by the United Church of Christ. She also has been a licensed clinical mental health counselor since 2011. She combines her chaplaincy and counseling credentials in her current workplace. She loves accompanying patients on their spiritual and emotional journeys as they ask the hard questions and find their own divinely inspired truth, wisdom, and peace. Melanie’s other interests include outdoor adventures, music, and travel