{"id":2908,"date":"2021-02-16T11:08:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T17:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/?p=2908"},"modified":"2021-02-17T13:13:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T19:13:41","slug":"the-school-chaplain-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/?p=2908","title":{"rendered":"The School Chaplain Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does the School Chaplain Program work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries rarely provide counselors of any kind for public schools. Mission Generation fills the gap by training teachers, parents, or church members to use the Word of God to counsel and pray with students, school faculty and parents. Providing this much needed service is deeply appreciated by school officials and parents.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teachers, parents, or church members take two 128-hour online courses to qualify as school chaplains. There is a 63% success rate. Those who pass the courses are awarded a Post Baccalaureate diploma qualifying them as a spiritual school counselor or chaplain. School counselors\/chaplains are recognized by teacher unions and school boards. This recognition allows chaplains to have designated rooms in schools for counseling and prayer. They lead school gatherings with prayer and conduct special campus-wide assemblies where Biblical values are taught and the gospel is presented. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(Special note: Presenting the Gospel during school assemblies is a huge opportunity for mission trips. There is an open invitation from schools for visitors to tell their story and invite others to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior.)    <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over 80% of spiritual school counselors or chaplains are teachers, which means they are already present on school campuses as part of their everyday routine. The balance is made up of concerned parents and evangelicals who consider school chaplaincy their ministry. Evangelical chaplains serve all manner of schools including Catholic and secular private and charter schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">School administrators are quickly discovering the value of Godly counsel and prayer; thus, they allow a teacher who is certified as a school counselor or chaplain to work at least part of their day in that capacity. In larger schools, spiritual school counselors or chaplains work full time in that capacity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The response to the School Chaplain Program<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What do the recipients of the SCP say about it&#8217;s effectiveness? In a sense, Mission Generation\u2019s spiritual school counselors&nbsp;and&nbsp;chaplains are competing against&nbsp;vacant chairs, so the score is always 100 to 0.&nbsp;Parents are the most appreciative and supportive&nbsp;demographic.&nbsp;Whenever&nbsp;the&nbsp;School Chaplain&nbsp;Program has been&nbsp;challenged,&nbsp;the&nbsp;parents&nbsp;have responded&nbsp;<em>en masse<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the early days of the program when it was small enough to snuff out, the Bolivian government sent a team of people to close&nbsp;down&nbsp;the ministry and&nbsp;remove&nbsp;the program&nbsp;from all schools. They&nbsp;locked our office&nbsp;doors&nbsp;and then proceeded to the first school.&nbsp;Around a&nbsp;hundred parents met them at the school yard gate and dared them to cross the line. A conversation ensued,&nbsp;both sides presenting their case. The government&nbsp;team was&nbsp;persuaded to&nbsp;reopen our office and requested&nbsp;a meeting.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&nbsp;discovered&nbsp;that&nbsp;the group&nbsp;sent from the government&nbsp;was composed of Cuban and Russian-trained Communists&nbsp;who&nbsp;reported&nbsp;directly to the Minister of Education. They voiced&nbsp;concern&nbsp;that&nbsp;the&nbsp;program would be&nbsp;politicized. They also strongly objected to religion in school. We promised to never&nbsp;align ourselves&nbsp;with a political party&nbsp;and&nbsp;also came to an agreement on Jesus.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As communists,&nbsp;they did&nbsp;not believe&nbsp;in&nbsp;God. We asked,&nbsp;\u201cIf God is not real where&nbsp;is the threat? Why create a national scandal if Jesus was&nbsp;nobody special?&nbsp;If you kick God out, that means you believe in God.\u201d&nbsp;They&nbsp;saw our point&nbsp;and&nbsp;we&nbsp;formed&nbsp;a&nbsp;bond. Bolivia became&nbsp;the first nation to certify and accredit the&nbsp;School Chaplain&nbsp;Program.&nbsp;This gave us the&nbsp;green light&nbsp;to replicate it throughout&nbsp;Bolivia and eventually&nbsp;Latin America.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How is the Program received by the local church? What about locals of non-Christian faiths like Islam, Buddhism, etc.?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As unbelievable as it sounds, announcements that schools will be providing spiritual counselors&nbsp;and chaplains&nbsp;have been&nbsp;received&nbsp;with&nbsp;enthusiasm&nbsp;and thanksgiving.&nbsp;Parents and teachers know that there is more to education than academics. Research proves that economic, social, and personal success is the result of&nbsp;Emotional Intelligence&nbsp;(EI),&nbsp;a topic addressed by spiritual school counselors or chaplains. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Prov. 9:10).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have found great commonality&nbsp;with&nbsp;parents&nbsp;when it comes to&nbsp;concern for their children. We have yet to run into a parent&nbsp;who&nbsp;did not want their children to&nbsp;receive&nbsp;a good education,&nbsp;to be safe in school and to graduate. The&nbsp;School Chaplain&nbsp;Program delivers great educational outcomes which makes its case.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Teen pregnancies&nbsp;are&nbsp;down by up to 85%.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Graduations rates&nbsp;are&nbsp;up&nbsp;by&nbsp;37%.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Graduates that continue education&nbsp;are&nbsp;up 300%, 80% returning to the&nbsp;community.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Parent participations&nbsp;in school meetings&nbsp;increased&nbsp;up to 500%.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Students&nbsp;average up one letter grade.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Student attitudes&nbsp;improve&nbsp;toward authority.&nbsp;\u202f&nbsp;<\/li><li>Dropout&nbsp;rate is&nbsp;down by&nbsp;up to&nbsp;45%.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Bullying and in-school violence&nbsp;is dramatically&nbsp;reduced.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Disciplinary actions and suspensions&nbsp;are&nbsp;dramatically reduced.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Gang participation&nbsp;is&nbsp;down or eliminated.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Teen suicide dropped to&nbsp;<strong>zero<\/strong>&nbsp;in every school using the program 2 years or more.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Campus&nbsp;culture changes&nbsp;when Jesus is invited to school,. While there are almost always a few&nbsp;who reject Him, once&nbsp;the&nbsp;campus&nbsp;Body of Christ (Ekklesia)&nbsp;is&nbsp;established,&nbsp;everyone benefits.&nbsp;To date, there&nbsp;has&nbsp;been&nbsp;only&nbsp;marginal resistance&nbsp;the&nbsp;School Chaplain&nbsp;Program&nbsp;from any group,&nbsp;religious or not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">New areas and distribution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How does Mission Generation get the School Chaplain Program into a new school, district or country?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> The marketing strategy for new schools, districts, and countries is the same. The marketing team facilitates word of mouth promotion. We encourage participants&nbsp;in the chaplain program&nbsp;to post their testimony. We then repost their stories on our network and paid links targeting their geographic areas.&nbsp;People in new districts&nbsp;or&nbsp;countries come on board when they see&nbsp;testimonies from neighboring districts&nbsp;or&nbsp;countries.&nbsp;Thousands of people have&nbsp;responded by&nbsp;requesting&nbsp;information.&nbsp;Offering the program at no cost greatly facilitates the strategy.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All lessons, courses,&nbsp;and content are distributed via phone apps&nbsp;(some programs are available&nbsp;on&nbsp;desktops&nbsp;as well).&nbsp;With relatively few hardline phones in developing countries, market penetration of&nbsp;smart phones&nbsp;has been&nbsp;higher&nbsp;there&nbsp;than in the U.S., and devices are cheaper than their American counterparts.&nbsp;The School&nbsp;Chaplain&nbsp;Program&nbsp;training courses, Bible lessons, classroom applications,&nbsp;and&nbsp;topical references are delivered through websites&nbsp;and&nbsp;social media.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once a person signs up to become a spiritual school counselor or chaplain, they are given&nbsp;schedules&nbsp;showing&nbsp;when courses will&nbsp;be offered.&nbsp;Training modules have a start and end date. Assignments must be completed on time in order to graduate. The courses are managed with an LMS (learning management system) so that online activity, quizzes, tests, and assignments can be tracked.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Representatives of the&nbsp;School&nbsp;Chaplain&nbsp;Program also speak at conferences and&nbsp;give customized&nbsp;courses to&nbsp;national and state level&nbsp;education&nbsp;departments.&nbsp;Our staff&nbsp;members&nbsp;also&nbsp;offer&nbsp;spiritual&nbsp;and educational&nbsp;consulting&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;personal follow-up to courses and lessons.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Overcoming legal and political challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Governments challenging the&nbsp;School&nbsp;Chaplain&nbsp;Program&nbsp;have been shocked when presented with their own data showing the cost to them of teen pregnancy and school dropouts. The program&nbsp;has proven to be very effective at reducing&nbsp;government&nbsp;entitlement&nbsp;spending and not just when young people are in school but over the course of their lives.&nbsp;Once this&nbsp;fact&nbsp;is understood,&nbsp;the government view softens.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This common ground&nbsp;approach&nbsp;of&nbsp;<em>\u201cWe help you if you help us\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;strategy has been very effective.&nbsp;A case in point&nbsp;occurred in the&nbsp;early days of the program&nbsp;when&nbsp;the Bolivian government denied&nbsp;the ministry&nbsp;access to public schools.&nbsp;In response,&nbsp;we offered&nbsp;to help them with a huge problem.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like most developing nations, there are no&nbsp;formal&nbsp;addresses&nbsp;in Bolivia.&nbsp;People use landmarks or hand-drawn maps.&nbsp;Our technical&nbsp;team&nbsp;built&nbsp;a website that gave the&nbsp;government, for the first time,&nbsp;a&nbsp;Google&nbsp;Earth-generated map&nbsp;system&nbsp;with&nbsp;the&nbsp;exact&nbsp;location of every school in the nation.&nbsp;In exchange for this service, the&nbsp;School Chaplain&nbsp;Program was given&nbsp;<strong>indefinite and unlimited<\/strong>&nbsp;access to&nbsp;every school in the country.&nbsp;Once the Bolivian National Education Department&nbsp;accredited&nbsp;our program, other nations&nbsp;soon&nbsp;followed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who creates the Program&#8217;s material?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mission Generation adopted&nbsp;Billy Graham\u2019s discipleship and training courses&nbsp;as&nbsp;the&nbsp;core&nbsp;of&nbsp;the&nbsp;School&nbsp;Chaplain&nbsp;Program. The&nbsp;Reverend Graham&nbsp;is well&nbsp;known and&nbsp;respected&nbsp;by a broad spectrum of Christianity. Pastors, chaplains, education psychologists, child psychologists and classroom teachers have built on this&nbsp;platform&nbsp;to create&nbsp;training and support materials.&nbsp;The ministry has also employed professional program evaluators to critique&nbsp;the program from several points of view which has proven to be very valuable.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The training program is online and is offered as two 128-hour courses divided into 4 modules each. Each module has a start and end date requiring assignments to be completed on&nbsp;time and is supported with webinars. Reading material, tests&nbsp;and grades are monitored and recorded on a learning management system (LMS).&nbsp;With few exceptions,&nbsp;people&nbsp;who&nbsp;sign up for the course&nbsp;do not&nbsp;expect to be graded, and&nbsp;there is a&nbsp;37%&nbsp;failure rate&nbsp;of the people&nbsp;who&nbsp;begin&nbsp;the course.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Verification and evalutation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pastors and professional program evaluators are used as \u201csecret shoppers\u201d to evaluate the&nbsp;School&nbsp;Chaplain&nbsp;Program. The evaluators take all of the training courses, read all published material, and randomly call schools and chaplains to solicit their responses and opinions about the program.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Evaluators help insure best practices&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;the highest standards of integrity and efficiency.&nbsp; Observations, edits, improvements, discrepancies, complaints, and praises are collected into templates to structure reports. The executive team and the evaluators meet on a regular basis to discuss reports and make appropriate improvements&nbsp;or changes&nbsp;to the program\u2019s training, support mechanisms,&nbsp;and\/or protocols.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Program acceditation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What does accreditation of the School Chaplain Program mean? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Accreditation means the&nbsp;School Chaplain&nbsp;Program is&nbsp;officially recognized&nbsp;by at least one governmental or educational entity in the country of deployment. The program is accredited or officially recognized as being qualified to train adults to perform the duties of a spiritual school counselor in every country where it works.&nbsp;Accreditations generally come from&nbsp;universities,&nbsp;teacher unions and\/or boards of education.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everyone who completes the training courses receives a post-baccalaureate diploma. Licensed teachers who complete the courses are&nbsp;credentialed as&nbsp;spiritual school counselors, which qualifies them for increased compensation, additional benefits, and promotions.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evaluation numbers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where do the numbers come from that allow Mission Generation to claim millions of people are in the program?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The numbers are dynamic in the sense that they are adjusted every&nbsp;quarter.&nbsp;In 2020, the average&nbsp;number of people per school was&nbsp;898&nbsp;which&nbsp;includes&nbsp;students, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff.&nbsp;The&nbsp;formula for the&nbsp;total&nbsp;number&nbsp;of people in the school chaplain program&nbsp;is:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>N<\/em><em>umber of schools in the program&nbsp; x&nbsp; average number of people per school<\/em><em>&nbsp;<\/em><em>=<\/em><em>&nbsp;total number of participants.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The average number of people per school is re-evaluated&nbsp;at the end of&nbsp;each calendar&nbsp;year.&nbsp;In 2018&nbsp;for example, there was a major revision&nbsp;to the average number of participants per school which&nbsp;significantly dropped the overall numbers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Support<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How does the School Chaplain Program address questions, personal needs and urgent requests? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Program operates&nbsp;a call center 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Call center service is increased to 16 hours on days when webinars are hosted. WhatsApp allows all texts and calls to&nbsp;be made&nbsp;to the call center&nbsp;without cost.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because of&nbsp;the&nbsp;training and support apps, there are very few urgent requests.&nbsp;Of the&nbsp;several hundred texts and calls a week,&nbsp;most are&nbsp;requests for technical&nbsp;support.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How does the School Chaplain Program work? Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries rarely provide counselors of any kind for public schools. Mission Generation fills the gap by training teachers, parents, or church members to use the Word of God to counsel and pray with students, school faculty and parents. Providing this much needed service is deeply<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,159,94],"tags":[156],"class_list":["post-2908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain-program","category-faqs","category-school-program","tag-faq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2908"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2977,"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908\/revisions\/2977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forvidas.org\/blogmg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}