Social Justice Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), a groundbreaking program uniquely housed at the Minnesota Correctional Facility–Stillwater, offers hands-on training for faith leaders, seminarians, and incarcerated men, focusing on spiritual care and social justice. Accredited by ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care & Education, the program combines qualified supervision, hands-on spiritual care, and peer group reflection that enhances faith leaders’ ability to serve their communities. Social Justice CPE fosters connections between communities of faith and those in need, inspiring compassionate, skilled leaders that promote healing and justice.
Healing & Learning Through Connection
Changing Lives
Support on the journey toward healing, justice, and restoration
Faith leaders looking to deepen their ability to walk with individuals and communities through stories of pain, healing, and transformation often need a starting point and a community to guide them. The Social Justice Clinical Pastoral Education program provides both. Within the walls of Stillwater Prison, it creates a space for community faith leaders and individuals who are incarcerated to engage deeply with one another’s experiences, forming peer groups rooted in mutual respect and shared learning. Through this groundbreaking program, participants gain essential spiritual care skills, learn to navigate complex stories of healing and justice, and grow into compassionate leaders capable of fostering change within themselves and their communities.
“Without exaggeration the SJ CPE unit has been the most transformative experience of my life...This unit has been life changing because you get labeled with one story. There’s more to me. When I update that story I have love, healing, growth, and redemption.”
-CPE Student and Incarcerated Leader Dave
Preparing leaders for justice-based ministry of service
Whether you're preparing for specialized chaplaincy or looking to enhance your congregational ministry, Social Justice Clinical Pastoral Education is transformative theological education that will prepare you for justice-based ministry in the real world.
Social Justice CPE is accredited through the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. and given graduate-level credit at seminaries.
If you’re interested in learning more, please click on the CONNECT link, and we’ll reach out to you soon.
Commonly Asked Questions
CPE is interfaith professional education for spiritual care. It brings graduate students and practitioners of spiritual care (pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, crisis workers, and others) into supervised encounters with persons in crisis to develop greater self-awareness, deepen understanding of spiritual, and build skills in interpersonal and professional relationships.
Social Justice CPE provides justice-centered liberative spiritual care education for faith leaders who desire to expand their capacity to walk with individuals and communities through stories of pain, healing, and transformation.
Yes, Social Justice CPE is accredited through the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) and given graduate-level credit at seminaries.
ACPE (the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education) is a multicultural, multifaith organization dedicated to improving the quality of spiritual care and ministry through the clinical educational methods of Clinical Pastoral Education.
Social Justice CPE combines hands-on spiritual care with qualified supervision and peer group reflection. The curriculum utilizes a process education model which relies on the clinical method of learning. It includes use of individualized learning plans, clinical involvement, observation and reporting of the practice of spiritual care through individual and group supervision, peer group participation, and literature and instruction in spiritual formation and spiritual care competence.
Social Justice CPE's curriculum is centered around narrative therapy counseling theory, which students put into practice as they provide spiritual care in community programs and congregational settings. Individually designed learning plans focus on spiritual formation and integration, awareness of self and others, relational dynamics, spiritual care interventions, and professional development. Students will also learn how to use theoretical tools to support a continuum of care between communities of faith and those in greatest need, furthering their ability to respond to the needs of individuals through direct service and crisis care.
- Group Process Learning: Each unit is built on interpersonal group process learning in which five to eight faith leaders/seminarians learn purposeful listening skills and the basics of narrative counseling theory.
- Clinical Work in Spiritual Care/Chaplaincy or Congregational Ministry: Each faith leader/seminarian provides spiritual and pastoral care in settings in the community with a special focus on serving men, women, and children who have experienced poverty, institutionalization, or marginalization.
- Individual Supervision: Biweekly individual consultation for processing clinical work and interpersonal issues is also offered.
One unit of CPE is 400 hours of work:
- 300 hours of clinical spiritual care in social justice or congregational ministry settings
- 100 hours of group process learning with peers in ministry
The 400-hour unit is done in a 15-week period, for 28 hours per week:
- 20 hours of clinical work
- 8 hours of group process
Units are offered in the fall (September-December), spring (January-May), and summer (May-July).
Youth residential mental health facilities, alternative high schools, transitional housing and support programs serving individuals following incarceration, individual and family affordable housing, and more.
The learning outcomes for all levels of CPE fall under the following five categories:
- Spiritual Formation and Integration
Spiritual formation as a spiritual care provider includes the awareness and integration of one’s narrative history, socio-cultural identity, and spiritual/values-based orienting systems. - Awareness of Self and Others
The CPE process helps build awareness of self and others as a vehicle for greater spiritual care. Awareness includes learning about oneself and developing greater awareness of the experiences and values of others. - Relational Dynamics
Spiritual care and education require empathy and healthy relational boundaries grounded in warmheartedness for self and others. Empathy includes caring about and taking the perspective of others’ experiences, values, beliefs, and practices. Healthy relational boundaries include respect for differences in spirituality. Empathy and relational boundaries work in tandem to ensure helpful, rather than harmful, spiritual care. - Spiritual Care Interventions
Spiritual care providers inhabit a role that necessitates specialized knowledge and skills to address spiritual care needs. Understanding one’s role and the power and authority embedded within it are essential to providing spiritual care interventions. Learning practical communication styles and skills are necessary to develop spiritual care relationships. One way of addressing the spiritual care needs of care receivers is to utilize cultural, religious, and spiritual resources that support wellbeing. - Professional Development
Success in the formational and reflective process of CPE requires an engagement with one’s own learning process and what it means to be a professional in spiritual care. Professional Development in the CPE process includes engaging the Clinical Method of Learning, abiding by Ethical Practice and Professionalism, growing through Consultation and Feedback, investing in Teamwork and Collaboration, and becoming Research literate.
If you'd like to learn more, please click on the CONNECT link, and we'll reach out to you shortly.
The History of Social Justice Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)
Founded in 2018 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Social Justice CPE began with a bold vision to place student chaplains in non-traditional settings—such as homeless shelters, mental health facilities, re-entry programs, and correctional institutions—where spiritual care is often most needed but least accessible.
The program’s reach grew when it was invited to participate in a six-week Restorative Justice training taught by incarcerated individuals inside the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater. This transformative experience eventually led to the creation of a program that trained incarcerated men to provide spiritual care to their peers made possible through a partnership with the facility's Chaplain department and a generous gift from a family foundation. Upon their release, these men carry the knowledge and skills gained through this program back into their communities, continuing to offer support to those who need it most.
In 2024, Social Justice CPE became a part of Volunteers of America Minnesota and Wisconsin, furthering its mission to foster social justice and spiritual care. Under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Laura Thelander, Director of Spiritual Care and Social Justice CPE, the program continues to uplift individuals and strengthen communities through transformative spiritual care rooted in hope, healing, justice, and restoration.
Rev. Dr. Laura Thelander (Certified Educator Candidate)
Rev. Dr. Laura Thelander is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) with 27 years of diverse experience in ministry. Throughout her career, she has served in seminary and congregational settings, as well as in a health and human service nonprofits. Laura is passionate about holistic spiritual care that fosters the well-being of individuals and communities, reflecting God’s reign of mercy and justice.
She holds a Ph.D. from the Princeton Theological Seminary in Systematic Theology and has completed a certification program in spiritual direction. In 2022, Laura became a Certified Educator Candidate with the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE), further deepening her commitment to training others in spiritual care. Currently, Laura serves as the Director for Spiritual Care and Social Justice CPE at Volunteers of America Minnesota and Wisconsin, where she continues to advocate for justice and whole person care in her leadership role.
Rev. Dr. Sue Allers Hatlie (ACPE Certified Educator)
Sue Allers Hatlie is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and founder of Social Justice CPE. She has 23 years of experience as a correctional chaplain, including 15 years as the Director of Chaplaincy. Her ministry involves a special commitment to men, women, and children emerging from cycles of poverty and systems of oppression. In 2006, Sue became a Certified Supervisor/Pastoral Educator in the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education. Sue holds an M.Div. from United Theological Seminary (Honors) as well as a Doctor of Ministry degree (with Distinction) with a focus on Narrative Therapy from the MN Consortium of Theological Schools.
Testimonials
“These incarcerated spiritual care leaders continue to make the prison a safer place for the correctional staff and inmates as they de-escalate, diffuse, and offer spiritual care and counseling.”
-Prison Warden
“CPE has enabled me to help men who have lost hope re-story their lives in a manner that leads to their healing."
-Incarcerated CPE Student
“Doing CPE in a prison setting is one of the most profound experiences in seminary. Our CPE group inside MCF-Stillwater explored grief, trauma, complex stories, race, spirituality, and how to care for the communities we serve. My perspective on chaplaincy and ministry has been expanded; I’m a better pastor because of SJ CPE. I don’t think there is a better place to do CPE — I’m so grateful for this life changing opportunity…”
-CPE Student
Resources
News
Transforming Lives Through Spiritual Care: SJ CPE Graduation Featured in Star Tribune
VOA MN/WI is excited to share a link to a Star Tribune article highlighting the recent graduation of our Social Justice Clinical Pastoral Education (SJ CPE) program at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater. This groundbreaking program exemplifies our commitment to reweaving the social fabric through spiritual care.
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