TACC Launches First-ever CPE Program in Jamaica

In 2009 The Rev. Dr. Marjorie Lewis, a faculty member at United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI) in Kingston, came to TACC to take her first unit of CPE. Marjorie loved her CPE experience so much that that when she became President of UTCWI last year she was determined to provide CPE to her students. Kingston has a growing urban context with many of the issues of poverty, homelessness and mental illness that are similar to the urban context in which TACC’s CPE students work in Atlanta. Although CPE has never been done in the West Indies Marjorie knew that clinical placements in Kingston would be rich places of learning for her students. And so TACC sent out the word that a CPE Supervisor was needed to go to Jamaica. Soon Rev. Deryck Durston, Associate Director of the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education called to volunteer his services. On June 1, 2011, the first unit of CPE in the West Indies began on the campus of UTCWI. There are 7 students in the group and each of them are providing pastoral care in 5 clinical sites which include a psychiatric hospital, a residential care facility for babies and children whose parents have died with AIDS and other outreach services to marginalized adults and children. The unit will go through the summer and Deryck is already reporting that the students are eager and grateful for the experience.