Print

Churches: Send a Chaplain for Staff

Churches: How to Offer a Chaplain Who Solely Supports Jail Staff

Officers who serve at jails (“correctional staff”), need support.
Many churches provide religious support to inmates, but correctional staff also deserve spiritual help, and the hope that comes from hearing about God’s love and provision for them.
 
Click here to read why Correctional Staff need support!
 
Here’s how to provide spiritual and emotional support to your local jail’s staff:

  1. Your church may already have members who minister to inmates. If not, first identify capable members who desire to do so. Next, inquire of the jail how those members may gain access to offer this support. After this has been in place for a few months or years, consider the following steps.
 
  1. Ask volunteers from your church, who support inmates, to read the facts above: why jail staff also need support. Ask if any would pray about switching to serve staff. (As they are already approved by the jail to enter the jail, know its layout a bit, this facilitates a switch to serving staff.)
 
  1. They should consider the differences between serving inmates vs staff:
  • More time commitment. Meeting with inmates is typically once a week or month. In contrast, a volunteer chaplain for staff means going there more often, ideally once or more a week for at least several hours each time, and going into the different shifts. Having two or more chaplains make this easier, yet for small jails a single chaplain may be sufficient.
  • Physical demands. Supporting inmates means sitting with them for an hour or so. However, a chaplain to staff should walk the facility, connecting with each on-duty officer/staff member. The chaplain must be capable of walking distances and standing during conversations with staff. Getting familiar with the facility layout is also needed.
  • Conversations are short, as staff must attend to their duties. Opportunity for ministry is brief.
  • The chaplain doesn’t preach, but listens, then offers encouragement, prayer, and any relevant materials or resources -- to help COs/staff see Christ’s presence and purpose in their challenges. 
 
4. To encourage them, there’s help!
  • Resources are available to assist a new chaplain in a correctional facility (which is very different from a hospital setting or other ministry). Such resources are linked below, in numbers 7 and 8.
 
When you have a prospective chaplain identified:
  1. Ask the jail if it would welcome that volunteer chaplain to solely support staff.
  • If you already go to the jail as a volunteer to inmates, ask officers who you might contact to ask about supporting staff. 
  • If you’re already supporting inmates, look in the jail’s website for a department to contact - such as Human Resources, Peer Support, or Staff Wellness.
 
  1. You may want to inquire by letter rather than a phone call. Describe that you would like to come to solely support the staff. Explain why you value the jail, its staff, and their service. Keep it short.
 
  1. If invited to discuss it, share why you and your church want to support them, perhaps:
  • Religious volunteers for inmates may care about and lend an occasional ear to staff, but staff know such volunteers’ priority is inmates, not staff. Also, such volunteers don’t have much time for staff.
  • In contrast, a chaplain who solely comes to support staff, indicates to staff that they are valued and of priority, by you and by the Administration who approved you to support them.
  • Share your desire to confidentially hear and address staff’s fears and pain.
  • Explain that – rather than sitting somewhere, waiting to be called to support staff after some incident -- your hope is to be allowed access to walk the entire facility, and have access any shift or day to on-duty staff. Tired staff in distress often do not have the energy, time, or inclination to seek help, but a roving chaplain will automatically encounter them.
  • Share that such a “roving chaplain” makes it convenient and “normal” for officers to confidentially share their concerns and receive help, healing, and God’s love.
  • For more on how to share your church’s desire to help its staff with the jail administrator, read Selling Admin on the Concept of a Chaplain for Staff.
  • Be patient – as God says -- because if the jail has not had a chaplain dedicated to staff before, it will understandably need to determine internal matters and gain approvals and clearances.
 
  1. When a chaplain is approved by the jail, there are free resources to assist him or her:
 
Thank you for your interest in our nation’s hidden heroes.
If you’ve any comment or suggestion, please contact AJA Chaplain LindaAhrens1@yahoo.com