What you’ll learn in this article…
- Daniel Gutierrez received a $3 million John Templeton Foundation grant.
- SCT-MH offers eight online modules on edX for clinicians.
- SPIRIT trains providers in acute psychiatric settings across 10 countries.
Most graduate programs in counseling, psychology, social work, and marriage and family therapy devote little or no required coursework to clients' spiritual, religious, secular, or atheist worldviews. A three-year, $3 million John Templeton Foundation grant to Virginia Commonwealth University is now funding two training initiatives: Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH) and Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential and Intensive Treatment (SPIRIT).1 That investment signals a broader credentialing shift. Clinicians who master these skills, along with knowing how faith-integrated certificates like biblical counseling fit or do not fit into continuing education, will be better positioned for ethical, whole-person care across settings.
What Is Spiritually Competent Care, and Why It's a National Priority Now
What does spiritually competent care actually look like in a therapy session? At its core, it is the skill of noticing, assessing, and responding to a client's spiritual, religious, secular, or agnostic worldview in ways that support whole-person treatment. That does not mean the therapist promotes a particular faith. It means the therapist treats worldview as a legitimate dimension of identity and coping, much like race, gender, or family background.
A Working Definition
Spiritually competent care involves asking thoughtful, open questions about what gives a client meaning, whether that is sacred belief, community ritual, moral conviction, or a secular sense of purpose. It also means knowing when to consult with a chaplain, collaborate with a faith leader, or refer a client who needs specialized support. The goal is not to diagnose faith but to understand how worldview influences coping, meaning-making, and help-seeking.
From Avoidance to Engagement
The opposite is "spiritually avoidant care," where clinicians sidestep the topic because they feel untrained or assume it is too personal. Avoidance can leave clients feeling unseen, especially when their values shape how they understand symptoms, suffering, and recovery.
Why Now
This is becoming a national priority because accrediting bodies, educators, and licensing conversations increasingly treat spiritual and religious competence as cultural competence in counseling. In counseling, psychology, and social work, practitioners are being asked to serve clients across the full worldview spectrum, not only those who are religious.
Inside the $3 Million Templeton Grant: SCT-MH and SPIRIT Explained
SCT-MH: An Online Training Program
The first initiative, Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH), is an eight-module online curriculum hosted on edX. It teaches clinicians how to ask appropriate questions about spirituality and religion, examine their own assumptions, and recognize when to consult, collaborate, or refer. The training uses a hybrid format and is designed for practicing clinicians. Provider access costs $89 and includes 6 continuing education credits1. Educator and graduate student materials are free, which makes it appealing for counseling and psychology programs that want to embed spiritual competency in their coursework.
SPIRIT: Acute Care Applications
The second initiative, Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential and Intensive Treatment (SPIRIT), focuses on acute psychiatric settings. It prepares clinicians to help patients explore how beliefs, practices, relationships, and experiences connect to well-being or distress. The goal is to move away from spiritually avoidant care and address the full spectrum of worldviews, including religious, spiritual, secular, atheist, and agnostic perspectives.
Status and Rollout
The John Templeton Foundation grant is a three-year, $3 million award to Daniel Gutierrez at VCU, part of a multi-pronged approach to advance the global reach of these programs. International partners in countries including Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Spain, and others will adapt and pilot the trainings. As of September 2026, VCU and the foundation have not published specific 2026 pilot sites, enrollment numbers, or a fixed rollout timeline, so those details remain pending.
The John Templeton Foundation reported roughly $2.13 billion in total grantmaking by the end of 2022. While that figure spans many research areas, it reflects a funding scale that has made the foundation a major backer of scholarship connecting spirituality, religion, and mental health.
Who's Behind the Initiative: Daniel Gutierrez and the Research Team
Spiritual and religious competency is moving from a niche elective to a cross-professional expectation in mental health training. At the center of this shift is Daniel Gutierrez, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Counseling and Special Education at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Education and director of STAR Labs (Socially Transformative Applied Research). Gutierrez joined VCU in 2022 and was named a fellow of the American Counseling Association in 2025, a lifetime achievement honor.
Key collaborators
The team includes Joseph Currier (University of South Alabama), Michelle Pearce (University of Maryland, Baltimore), Kenneth I. Pargament (Bowling Green State University), Nicole Silverio (University of South Carolina), and David Rosmarin (Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital). Their combined expertise spans spiritually integrated cognitive behavioral therapy, meaning-making, and acute inpatient and residential care.
Global adaptation
Partners in Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark will adapt and pilot SCT-MH and SPIRIT. Most of these countries do not yet have national spiritual competency standards, so adaptation will build on widely cited international baselines such as ASERVIC's 14 competencies.1 Brazil offers a concrete local model: its CRESEAP instrument is described as the first Brazilian tool for measuring psychotherapists' competencies in managing religiosity, spirituality, secularity, and unusual experiences, and a 2025 pilot trained 46 Brazilian psychotherapists.2 That kind of cultural grounding, not a blanket translation, is what the international pilots are designed to test.
Why This Matters for Counseling, Psychology, and Social Work Training
For mental health trainees and supervisors in counseling, psychology, social work, and marriage and family therapy, spiritually competent care is no longer optional; it is becoming a core cultural competency that counseling master's degree programs and continuing education providers will need to address. This shift mirrors how the field has integrated multicultural counseling competencies over the past several decades.
A New Cultural Competency for Graduate Curricula
Spiritual competency functions like other cultural competencies: it requires self-awareness, knowledge of diverse worldviews, and skills for ethical practice. Just as students learn to consider race, gender, and socioeconomic context, they can learn to ask about beliefs and practices without imposing any agenda. The SCT-MH online training model gives programs a transferable framework, while SPIRIT shows how the same principles apply in acute inpatient and residential settings, where beliefs often surface during crisis. The inclusion of secular, atheist, and agnostic clients in these frameworks reinforces that competence is about understanding a client's worldview, not endorsing it.
Practical Implications for Trainees and Supervisors
For CMHC, LMFT, MSW, and psychology students, this means supervision, including the supervision of MFT trainees, should include reflective questions about how a client's religious, spiritual, secular, or atheist identity shapes meaning-making and coping. Supervisors can normalize discussions of spirituality as part of case conceptualization rather than treating it as a taboo topic. Programs and CE providers may embed SCT-MH or SPIRIT-informed modules into practicum seminars, ethics courses, and licensure preparation. The ultimate goal is not to promote any belief system but to reduce spiritually avoidant care and help clinicians respond competently across the full spectrum of worldviews.
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How This Fits With Biblical Counseling Certificates and CE Options
Biblical counseling certificates are typically academic or ministry training programs with costs from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, and most do not count as continuing education for ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC. A separate faith-integrated CE course, such as Light University's 3-credit offering, is inexpensive but explicitly not approved for NBCC and does not meet CE requirements for state licensure. A secular workshop like Cascadia Training's Spirit and Psyche is the clearest example of CE that counts for NBCC and NASW-Washington, including cultural competence hours.
| Program Type | Typical Cost | Format/Length | Accreditation | Counts Toward CE/Licensure? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faith-based biblical counseling certificate | $670 full program tuition (2025-2026) | Two semesters | Fulfills Phase One of the ACBC Fundamental Requirements; no statement found that ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC recognize this program for CE credit | No indication in program description that it is approved as CE for ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC; appears designed for ACBC biblical counseling training rather than state licensure CE |
| Faith-based biblical counseling certificate | $333 per month subscription or $175 per credit hour | 18 credit hours; 8-week online classes | For-credit academic certificate; no statement that ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC accept it for CE | No indication that the program is an approved CE provider for ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC; appears to be an academic/ministry training program rather than licensure CE |
| Faith-based biblical counseling certificate (graduate) | $450 per credit, total $8,100 for 18 credits (not including fees) | 18 graduate credits (12 credits of core courses plus 6 credits of biblical counseling electives) | Graduate academic certificate; site does not state approval as a CE provider for ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC | No evidence on the program page that it is recognized as CE for licensed counselors or social workers by ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC |
| Faith-based pastoral counseling certificate (graduate, online) | $290 per credit hour; discounted divinity block rate $2,575 per semester (equivalent to $172 per credit from 9 to 15 credit hours) | Graduate divinity certificate that can be taken in blocks of 9 to 15 credit hours per semester | Regionally accredited university offering graduate divinity coursework; certificate information does not state approval as CE by ACA, APA, NASW, or NBCC | No indication on the program page that the certificate is offered as NBCC-, ACA-, NASW-, or APA-approved CE; it functions primarily as graduate academic credit |
| Faith-integrated continuing education course | $69.00 (original price $149.00) | 3 credit hours of continuing education | CE accreditations listed for IBCC and Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling; explicitly not approved for NBCC credit and does not meet CE requirements for state licensure for mental health professionals | Provides 3.00 IBCC credit hours and Florida Board CE; explicitly does not meet CE requirements for licensed mental health professionals and is not approved for NBCC credit |
| Secular spiritual competency workshop (live online) | $190.00 registration fee | Single-day workshop on Friday, October 2, 2026, from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Pacific Time; 6 continuing education hours | Workshop description lists 6 continuing education credits, approved for NBCC and NASW-Washington; meets criteria for 2 Health Equity or Cultural Competence CEs | Counts as 6 NBCC- and NASW-WA-approved CE hours and is described as meeting health equity/cultural competence CE criteria, making it suitable for licensed clinicians whose boards accept NBCC or NASW-WA approvals |
Spiritually competent care is not faith-based counseling. It is a clinical framework that includes religious, spiritual, secular, atheist, and agnostic clients equally. The aim is to understand how beliefs and worldviews shape mental health, not to promote any one belief system. For clinicians, this means asking about spirituality as one dimension of identity while respecting each client's own frame of reference.
