The National Association of Jewish Chaplains is asking the healthcare profession to adopt standards for chaplaincy in part to prevent Christian evangelicals from proselytizing to hospital patients and other vulnerable people.

Meeting Jan. 14-17 in Redondo Beach, Calif., the association reaffirmed an initiative asking healthcare accreditation agencies to grant the profession of chaplaincy full status in educating and training healthcare professionals.

Such standards would reduce “the very strong possibility that patients will be taken advantage of by evangelical groups and people who have other agendas than the well-being of the patient,” said NAJC coordinator Cecille Asekoff. Her office is in Whippany.

Asekoff said that concerns about chaplains’ using their positions to proselytize grew after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. “There were groups that went out to capitalize on the mood in the country,” she said. “For us it is a big concern.”

The accreditation standards would recognize that chaplains generally come into contact with patients and their families at vulnerable moments in their lives.

“By having board-certified chaplains — Jewish and non-Jewish — you can assure that kind of exploitation will not happen,” said Asekoff. “It is always a threat, and the hospitals are aware of it.”

Some 120 delegates, including some rabbis and cantors as well as executives of Christian chaplaincy groups, pledged to join in partnership with other healthcare professionals by becoming liaisons to the national boards of such organizations as leading pharmaceutical companies, the American Medical Association, and the training and accreditation agencies for hospitals, medical and nursing schools, and other facilities.

Asekoff said she also believes that the chaplains themselves must enforce tough standards among their own ranks.

“The NAJC has instituted a very strong requirement that our chaplains be reviewed by their peers once every three years,” she said. “We have set up networks of long-term care chaplains, hospice chaplains, acute-care chaplains, and others who are out in the community.” With the initiative enacted, she said, the chaplains “will be able to interact with one another over the Internet and by other means. This will give them support. In a hospital you may find dozens of nurses or dozens of social workers, but you are not likely to find dozens of chaplains. Therefore, peer support is an extremely important piece we have to make happen.”

On another front, Asekoff said, her organization is moving forward with its “Israel initiative,” a move to establish a profession of chaplaincy outside the bounds of that country’s Ministry of Religion. The idea is to increase the number of chaplains trained in pastoral care, which includes consultation and counsel regarding spiritual, emotional, and ethical matters. Currently, the primary role of rabbis at Israeli healthcare facilities is to assure kashrut and oversee ritual affairs, she said.

In the spring, the NAJC will conduct a six-week course for Israelis who have already had some training in pastoral and spiritual care. The program will be sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. “What they really want in Israel is training,” she said.

“Hospitals and other facilities in Israel are very slowly beginning to hire chaplains. There are programs for chaplaincy training going on. We are doing some hospice training in Israel. Just like here, what we do has to be incorporated into the healthcare system over there.”