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Transforming Chaplaincy 10 years of

A Decade of Transformation

When someone receives unexpected news of a serious diagnosis, faces a sudden hospitalization, or watches a loved one struggle through intensive care, they need more than medical expertise. In these pivotal moments, spiritual care becomes essential to healing, yet too often, it remains an underutilized resource in healthcare.

For the past ten years, Transforming Chaplaincy has worked to change this reality. Through leading research and dissemination, educational programs, and research networks, we’ve helped countless chaplains to integrate evidence into their daily work. Grounded in the conviction that every patient and family deserves access to high-quality spiritual care, we have dedicated ourselves to building the evidence base that demonstrates why chaplaincy matters and equipping chaplains with the research, tools, and training they need to provide excellent care when it matters most.

Our mission is centered on the belief that spiritual care is integral to wholeperson health. Through rigorous research,

accessible education, and collaborative partnerships, we have cultivated a culture of inquiry that bridges the gap between clinical practice and evidence. We have worked alongside chaplains, researchers, healthcare leaders, and supporting partners who share our commitment to compassionate, research-informed care that honors diverse perspectives and populations.

This report celebrates a decade of growth, discovery, and impact. It reflects the steadfast support of our home institution, Rush University, the generosity of our supporting partners, grantors, and donors, the dedication of our research collaborators, and the commitment of chaplains who translate evidence into practice. Together, we’re not just studying spiritual care; we’re transforming it for the next decade and beyond. We invite you to join us in this vital work.

Csaba Szilagyi

Our Mission

Transforming Chaplaincy advances evidence-based spiritual care by producing rigorous research, building research capacity among chaplains and healthcare systems, translating scholarship into practice, and fostering a culture of inquiry. Grounded in collaboration with patients, families, practitioners, and research partners, we generate and disseminate knowledge that demonstrates the benefits of spiritual care, equips chaplains to integrate evidence into their daily work, and strengthens spiritual care as an essential component of whole-person healthcare.

Priority Areas

Palliative Care + Pediatrics + Cancer Care

Our current research priorities are centered on enhancing spiritual care in palliative care, pediatrics, and cancer care, while addressing equity and diversity in each area.

For 10 years, Transforming Chaplaincy has been advancing spiritual care through research.

Our History: Advancing Spiritual Care through Research

George Fitchett and Wendy Cadge launch

Transforming Chaplaincy with $4.5M funding from the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and seed funding from spiritual care organizations

Grant-funded phase begins:

17 Chaplain Research Fellows receive advanced degrees to pursue a rigorous research agenda, contributing to the evidence base with over 30 publications and 100 presentations

Research Literacy education launches; curriculum development grants fund 68 chaplaincy education programs to train 850 students and 100 staff TC establishes collaborations to advance research internationally

First chaplaincy case study book published: Spiritual Care in Practice (Fitchett & Nolan)

Chaplain Research Summer Institute begins to provide annual intensive for research learning

Fitchett and colleagues, receive funding from NIH (R01) to study Dignity Therapy, the first NIH-funded intervention including chaplains

Published Evidence-Based Healthcare Chaplaincy (Fitchett et al.)

Growth after the initial grant funding continues with partnerships with Ascension, Providence, and IU Health

Spiritual Care Management & Leadership program launches to train the next generation of research-informed leaders

First

Published Case Studies in Spiritual Care (Fitchett & Nolan)

Research Networks form to support development and sharing of best practices in Palliative Care, Pediatrics, Trauma & Veteran’s Care, Cancer & Outpatient Care, and Chaplaincy Functions

TC engages new research documenting chaplains responses to COVID-19 and racial reckoning

George Fitchett’s body of work published in Transforming Chaplaincy: The George Fitchett Reader (eds. Nolan & Damen)

Pediatrics research core launched

Short Courses launch to provide in-depth education from content experts in spiritual care

Advancing spiritual care through research is more than a tagline. Evidence-based spiritual care is becoming the standard, as TC equips chaplains with the research and education necessary to care for people when it matters most.

Rigorous research at

the center

View our publications from the last 10 years on Google Scholar.

TC hosted the first Healthcare Chaplaincy State of the Science. This event, featuring 16 research presentations and 13 panelists, was made possible by TC’s investment in building chaplaincy research. SoS brought in 70 chaplains, leaders, and researchers gathered in-person at the Association of Professional Chaplains annual conference and hundreds of virtual participants at the APC Fall Symposium.

With a thriving portfolio of educational offerings translating research into practice, TC has hosted nine years of CRSI, new short courses, and five years of leaders trained in spiritual care management and leadership, and educated over 1700 chaplains in research literacy.

The TC team at Rush is identified as one of the most productive organizations and collaborators in palliative medicine and end-of-life spiritual care research (D’Andria Ursoleo et al.).

TC has grown into a strong team fully dedicated to our research agenda, collaborating, publishing, and presenting internationally. Our most recent projects are featured on pages 17–18.

Paul

Cate Beaulieu-Desjardins, Assistant Director of Research Development

George Fitchett, Senior Advisor

Amanda Borchik, Staff Researcher

Csaba Szilagyi, Director

Pictured:

Galchutt, Assistant Director of Engagement

Pictured: Beba Tata, MD, MDiv, MPH, BCC, presenter and Former TC Fellow

Together, we are building a global spiritual care research community.

In addition to the significant investment of Rush and our supporting partners, Transforming Chaplaincy has received

over

15.3 million in grants to support research at the intersection of spirituality and health. This investment has built the foundation of an essential evidence base for healthcare chaplaincy.

"This ten-year milestone belongs to a community of committed people who believed change was possible and chose to build the future of spiritual care together. The hope of transforming chaplaincy is no longer just an idea—it’s visibly integrated and alive in practice, benefiting patients in healthcare settings across the globe. Rush is proud to be the home of this movement and to celebrate ten years of Transforming Chaplaincy. With shared purpose and collaboration, we will continue to move our spiritual care research agenda forward into this new era of healthcare.”

Publishing Research for Impact

View our publications from the last 10 years on Google Scholar. Since 2017, we’ve been making research accessible to chaplains and healthcare leaders via our free webinars, receiving over 78k views.

Jason Turner PhD, MAE, Dean, College of Health Sciences, Rush University

Supporting Partnerships

Supporting Partnerships are multi-year commitments from healthcare systems, hospitals, and foundations to support the mission of Transforming Chaplaincy alongside receiving priority access and scholarships for TC’s education programs for their chaplains and leaders. Supporting Partnerships also include opportunities to shape the research agenda for chaplaincy and participate or partner in Transforming Chaplaincy’s research.

Gold Tier Supporting Partnership

100k+/multi-year commitment

Providence

Our long-standing partnership with Providence has provided foundational support for our research program and enabled TC to grow over the years. Each year, Providence selects a cohort of chaplains across its system to participate together in TC’s Spiritual Care Management & Leadership program, strengthening leadership in spiritual care through evidence-based practice.

We have collaborated with Theresa Vithayathil Edmonson, VP for Spiritual Health, Dr. Terra Tindle-Williams, Senior Clinical Research Scientist for Spiritual Health, and the Providence team on a wide range of initiatives from implementing innovative spiritual care strategies to consulting and partnering on research efforts.

"On behalf of Providence, I am delighted to recognize Transforming Chaplaincy’s 10th anniversary. This milestone marks a decade of distinguished service in advancing research within the field of health care chaplaincy. We are honored to be a supporting partner which reflects our shared dedication to excellence in spiritual health services. Over the past four years, this partnership has enabled us to explore emerging dimensions of spiritual health, such as digital technologies and artificial intelligence, while further strengthening the leadership competencies of our chaplains. Through this partnership, we inspire the growing body of evidence-based research informing the future of spiritual health."

Vithayathil

Theresa

Edmonson

BCC, Vice President, Spiritual Health, Providence

Silver Tier Supporting Partnerships

35k+/multi-year commitment

Indiana University Health

As a long-term supporting partner of Transforming Chaplaincy, IU Health is a national leader in spiritual care research. Evidence of their leadership is a recent grant from the NIH. Led by IU Health investigators Alexia Torke, Professor of Medicine and Section Chief of Palliative Medicine, and former TC fellow Shelley Varner Perez, Senior Program Manager for Spiritual Care Research, and joined by George Fitchett, this study extends IU Health’s important clinical trial to study the effects of chaplain care for ICU surrogate decision-makers.

Houston Methodist

As our newest supporting partner, Houston Methodist has focused on education and partnered research. An intensive Writing and Publishing Your Case Study Course equipped Houston Methodist to make an exemplary contribution to the chaplaincy evidence base. In collaboration with TC researcher Dr. Beth Meulhausen, there are 9 research manuscripts in preparation for submission, including five case studies, two literature reviews, and two qualitative studies of unique cultural immersion programs Houston Methodist offers for student chaplains.

Cedars-Sinai

TC celebrates its partnership with Cedars-Sinai through achievements such as the publication Evaluation of spiritual care services at Cedars Sinai hospitals: Employees’ views (Lazor et al., 2025). We value the opportunity to involve the Cedars-Sinai chaplain team in regular journal clubs that highlight relevant practice-based evidence and to collaborate with educators on preparing beginner and advanced chaplain students for research-informed practice.

Additional Funding

Grantors and Non-Individual Donors

Cambia Health Foundation

E. Rhodes & Leona B. Carpenter Foundation

Foundation for ACPE

The GW Institute for Spirituality and Health

Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford

Norton Healthcare

Individual Donors

These grantors and donors supported Transforming Chaplaincy between July 2024 and December 2025. We are also grateful to our anonymous donors who are not named.

Carol Galchutt

George and Judith J. Fitchett

Kathryn Lyndes

Mary Jo Cairns

Sarah McEvoy

Roy E. Smith

Virginia Day

Ruth Meberg

David Fleenor

Patricia E. Murphy

Theodore J. Saclarides, MD

If your organization is interested in exploring a supporting partnership, the first step is to reach out for an initial conversation. All supporting partnerships are co-created to maximize TC’s ability to help the partner organization with their own research, leadership, and education goals.

Join our community of support by making a gift today.

DONATE NOW

Research Networks

The aim of our research networks is to strengthen evidence-based spiritual care in clinical specialty areas through connection, education, and research.

In 2025, our nine research networks, led by content experts, brought together 2,743 chaplains, researchers, leaders, and interprofessional colleagues interested in generating and translating research in their specialty area.

Population Health and Digital Spiritual Care

Transforming Chaplaincy is ensuring a future for spiritual care research.

Vision for the Next Decade

As we look toward the next ten years, Transforming Chaplaincy envisions a future where every patient across the lifespan has access to high-quality spiritual care grounded in rigorous research evidence. We will continue producing trusted scholarship that demonstrates how spiritual care benefits diverse populations across clinical settings, while also equipping chaplains with the research literacy, tools, and training needed to incorporate this evidence into their daily practice and advance spiritual care integration in healthcare settings. Through expanded partnerships with health systems, academic institutions, and funding organizations, we aim to build the infrastructure required for sustained research productivity in our strategic focus areas.

Central to this vision is our commitment to including the voices of patients, families, and practitioners in our research, honoring their diverse perspectives and life experiences.

Our goal extends beyond generating knowledge; it also involves fostering a culture where spiritual care is recognized as essential to whole-person health—trusted by patients, valued by healthcare teams, and supported by institutional investment. By strengthening the link between research and practice, we will ensure that when people encounter the most vulnerable moments of their health journeys, they receive spiritual care that is not only compassionate but also guided by the best available evidence on what truly promotes healing and human flourishing.

Recently Funded Projects

Building the future of spiritual care with rigor.

Digital Spiritual Care: Towards a Vision for Compassionate Care in Digital Health

Collaboration with the University of Zurich and Heidelberg University, funded by the John Templeton Foundation

Integrating Spiritual Health in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology: A Collaborative Spiritual Care Model with Certified Child Life Specialists and Chaplains

Collaboration with Vanderbilt University, sponsored by GWish and the John Templeton Foundation

The GW Institute for Spirituality & Health

"Spiritual care is a fundamental part of whole person care. The GW Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish) deeply values our collaborative work with Transforming Chaplaincy, the trustworthy voice guiding the future of spiritual care research and practice. From every part of the research process—proposing and conceptualizing new questions to publication and dissemination—TC honors what is most important: that every patient deserves access to the highest quality spiritual care.”

Christina Puchalski

MD, FACP, FAAHPM, Executive Director,

The George Washington University Institute for Spirituality & Health (GWish)

Serious Illness Curriculum for Chaplain Progress Notes

Funded by Cambia Health Foundation

Assessing Spiritual Concerns in Cancer Care through the ONC-5 Model for Spiritual Assessment

Rush College of Health Science funding from the Peter T. Roumbos Estate

Understanding the Experiences of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Persons in Clinical Pastoral Education

Funded by E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation

Chaplain Family Project Multi-Center Study of Spiritual Care Intervention in ICUs

Collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University and Indiana University Health, funded by NIH

Research Shaping the Future

We are excited to lead and collaborate on additional research projects that will shape how spiritual care is delivered in the future.

Mapping Spiritual Care Services in:

Acute Care Hospitals

Collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University

Pediatric Hospitals

Collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford

Long-Term Care

Collaboration with Saint Mary’s College

Spiritual Assessments:

GERO-6: Spiritual Assessment for Older Adults