Stephanie Gibson hoped the week’s training at the YMCA would be the start of something special.
Gibson, Christian mission director for Frank P. Phillips YMCA in Columbus, said she was proud to see the week-long chaplain training offered by the International Fellowship of Chaplains received so well.
“My hope is that this is the first YMCA of many to do this,” Gibson said. “I don’t want it to just be a Columbus thing.”
Throughout the week, 28 people — 21 of whom are local — undertook a 47-hour chaplain training course.
Col. Gale J. Yandell, executive director of training operations for IFOC, and Col. Kathy Burden, deputy director of operations for IFOC, taught the course. It covered everything from emergency response scenarios and dealing with depression to domestic abuse situations and trauma.
Yandell said the course’s intensity is regularly shocking to students.
“Folks come in here thinking that we’re just going to have a little class, and they have no idea the depth of information that is going to be offered and that they’re going to learn,” Yandell said. “This is going to teach them to be of help in circumstances where they have, before class, had no earthly idea what to do or how to help.”
Chaplains are often deployed in emergency situations to provide practical assistance, as needed, and also to help ease the pain of victims of a situation — whether it’s a family who has lost its home in a natural disaster or a child who has just lost a parent in a vehicle accident.
Class participants attended the $400 course from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, completed homework assignments, and took a test at the end of the week. Once successfully completed, students can apply for chaplain certification through IFOC.
“There are a lot of great churchgoers, a lot of great pastors who do chaplaincy,” Burden said. “But this is a pretty specific training to crisis and trauma. They might come at it a little bit differently as a pastor, but when you’re licensed through our group, you have a little different understanding of crisis and trauma and how it works.”
Obtaining that license affords more opportunities for chaplains to support communities, and Yandell said IFOC is a governmental support agency. That means if a crisis happens, government — on any level from federal to local — can call on the organization for response support.
Yandell said faith is a major part of chaplain work, but the class teaches a chaplain’s first responsibility is helping people in need.
“It’s a huge component, with the understanding that our primary purpose is to the meet the need,” Yandell said. “That is our primary purpose. But we always bring our spirituality and faith with us.”
Student impressions
Fran Guerry, a Columbus woman who has gone on missions trips to Argentina, Honduras, China and Honk Kong, took part in last weeks’ training. She said the class was intense, jumping from one heavy topic to another, but she enjoyed it.
One of the things she liked most about the class, she said, was that it taught students to recognize the organized response structure already in place in a crisis.
“We’re not going to run into a disaster situation and take over,” she said. “We’re going to go right to who’s in charge — if it’s the Red Cross (or another organization) that’s heading it up.”
Anthony Davis, who works at Columbus Brick Company, said he hopes to use his training to help in all areas of his life.
“This course has been life-changing,” he said. “I can see how this will help me in three phases: my personal life, workplace and my home life.”
Davis said learning about how to deal with grief and recognize signs of grief in others specifically stood out to him. He said the course’s breadth surprised him.
“I never thought would’ve thought that being a chaplain would cover so much,” he said. “Across the board, what you deal with in your personal life — a chaplain has to be in tune with that. ”
Gibson said the YMCA has pursued hosting such a class for the last five or six years, and interest in the training was so great that people had to be turned away due to space restrictions. The YMCA is looking to host another class in September, and Gibson said people are already beginning to inquire about it.
John Almond, who serves as a volunteer chaplain at the YMCA, received his training when he went to IFOC training in Tucson, Arizona. Almond said he believes chaplains strengthen communities, and was very happy to watch the training through the week.
“For me personally it has been pure joy,” Almond said. “I can see without exception that I’m just seeing the light turn on for every single one of these chaplain candidates.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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