Future CASC/ACSS Conferences

In 2020, CASC/ACSS is excited to participate in a joint conference with our strategic partners for professional excellence in spiritual care.

Dates: Monday, May 11 to Thursday, May 14, 2020
Theme: 20/20 Vision: The Future of Spiritual Care
Objectives: Share, Strengthen, Focus and Grow

    • Share leading practices in research, professional development, and credentialing
    • Strengthen professional relations
    • Focus our time, talents and resources on those most vulnerable
    • Grow our practical and professional skills

Plenary Speakers for 2020 Conference

Monday, May 11: Shane Sinclair from Calgary

Dr. Shane Sinclair is an Associate Professor and Cancer Care Research Professor with the University of Calgary, Faculty of Nursing. He holds adjunct appointments within the Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary and the Manitoba Palliative Care Research Unit at the University of Manitoba. His research focuses on psychosocial and spiritual issues within oncology and palliative care, including his nationally funded program of research on compassion. Dr. Sinclair is a former Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellow (University of Manitoba), a recipient of the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care Award of Excellence in Research, a top 40 under 40 awardee, and is the current President of the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology. He has given invited lectures at the European Association of Palliative Care World Congress, Duke University, and George Washington University. His 25+ publications thus far have been published in a number of high impact journals, garnering national and international media coverage.
From University of Calgary web site

Tuesday, May 12: Dr. Rhonda Magee

Professor Rhonda V. Magee is a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for lawyers, law students, and for minimizing social-identity-based bias. A full-time faculty member at University of San Francisco since 1998, and a full professor since 2004, she has been named Dean’s Circle Research Scholar, served as co-director of the University’s Center for Teaching Excellence, and co-facilitator of the Ignatian Faculty Forum faculty development program. She teaches Torts; Race, Law and Policy; and courses in Contemplative and Mindful Law and Law Practice.

From University of San Francisco Website

Wednesday, May 13: Dr. Adrienne Boissy (subject to final confirmation)

Adrienne Boissy, MD, MA, is Chief Experience Officer of Cleveland Clinic Health System, and a staff physician at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis with a secondary appointment in the Center for Ethics, Humanities and Spiritual Care. As Chief Experience Officer, Dr. Boissy leads the Office of Patient Experience and its initiatives to improve the patient experience across Cleveland Clinic Health System.

Dr. Boissy previously served as the Medical Director of the Center of Excellence in Healthcare Communication. Her team created a comprehensive program to strengthen physician and provider communication skills throughout Cleveland Clinic and has trained more than 4,000 staff physicians and house staff to date.

As part of her clinical work, Dr. Boissy focuses on ethical issues in neurological disease. She served on the Cleveland Clinic Ethics Committee and is the Assistant Clinical Director in the Center for Neuroethics. She has been published in Neurocritical Care, AAN Continuum and Neurology regarding the humane treatment of critically ill patients and communication challenges in clinical practice. In particular, she has a special interest in the words clinicians choose when conveying information, and the risks and ethics of what she calls “therapeutic mislabeling” versus truth telling.
From Cleveland Clinic web site

Thursday, May 14: Dr. Eboo Patel

Eboo Patel was a member of President Barack Obama’s inaugural Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships. He is an American Ismaili of Gujarati Indian heritage and founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that aims to promote interfaith cooperation.

Patel grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where he attended Glenbard South High School.[5] He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for his undergraduate studies and earned a degree in Sociology. He has a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.

Patel details his life and career extensively in his 2007 autobiography, Acts of Faith. In the book, Patel notes that he became interested in religious diversity in college, where he noticed that conversations on multiculturalism and multiple identities did not involve religious identity. After graduating from college, he taught at an alternative education program for high school dropouts in Chicago and, inspired partly by Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement, founded a cooperative living community for activists and artists in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. As an activist, Patel felt that diversity, service, and faith were important parts of civic life but found no community organization that touched on all three, specifically one that worked with young people. In response, he developed the idea for the Interfaith Youth Core, formulated through his relationship with Brother Wayne Teasdale and blessed by the Dalai Lama, that would bring young people of different faiths together around service and dialogue.

While a student at Oxford, Patel ran numerous interfaith youth projects in India, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. He officially founded IFYC in 2002 with a Jewish friend and a $35,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. Today the organization employs approximately 30 people and has a $4-million operating budget.
From Wikipedia page

Visit 2020 Vision: The Future of Spiritual Care

Organizers of Future Conferences

    • 2021 Conference – Ontario North East
    • 2022 Conference – Manitoba
    • 2023 Conference – Ontario South West
    • 2024 Conference – British Columbia
    • 2025 Conference – Saskatchewan
    • 2026 Conference – Ontario Central and North
    • 2027 Conference – Alberta
    • 2028 Conference – Atlantic