Clinical Pastoral Education
Close up of diverse people hold hands at therapy session

Clinical Pastoral Education

Combining ACPE accredited spiritual education with the premier medical care of North Memorial Health.

Learn the sacred practice of ministry and reflection with a supervisor and peers. Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE, includes in-depth study of “living human documents,” meaning both the people who are receiving care and the self.

View internship programs
View residency program
Close up of North Memorial N logo

Learning to care for the spirit

Students meet as a group to review case studies, discuss issues of practical theology, critique each other’s pastoral work, and participate in didactic seminars. Students also receive individual consultation with an ACPE Certified Educator.

Accredited by ACPE, we are devoted to providing education and improving the quality of ministry and pastoral care offered by spiritual caregivers in a multicultural, multi-faith setting.

CPE at North – Robbinsdale Hospital

Our program offers a respectful, safe, small-group environment that focuses on action-reflection learning.

We foster your professional development through:

  • Personal goal-setting and ongoing reflection
  • Theological and spiritual reflection
  • Facilitated peer discussion
  • Collaboration with hospital staff and patients
  • Mentorships with chaplains
  • Consultation with ACPE Certified Educator
  • Evaluation process

Why North Memorial Health? See what our medical residents have to say!

North – Robbinsdale Hospital’s wide range of clinical settings offers incredible opportunities for learning and practicing the art of spiritual care including:

  • Cancer Care
  • Emergency Care
  • Heart and Vascular
  • ICU
  • Level I Trauma Center
  • Medical and Surgical Units
  • Neurology
  • Orthopedics
  • Palliative Care

Our team

Kim has been a Certified Educator with the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) since 2010. She has her B.A. from Concordia College, Moorhead, and M.Div. from Luther Seminary in St. Paul. She did congregational internship in an Anglican church in the suburbs of London, England, and completed CPE residency at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

Kim is ordained in the Presbyterian Church, (U.S.A.). Kim is certified as a Healthcare Ethics Consultant through the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities. She previously served as a clinical ethics consultant at Abbott Northwestern as well as CPE educator, and before that at United Hospital as an educator and board-certified chaplain with a focus on oncology, hospice and mental health.

Kim lives in Bloomington where she encourages her kids, spouse, and dog to get lost daily in the woods behind their house along the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

Karin has her BA in Sociology from North Park University in Chicago, MA in Congregational and Community Care from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, and M.Div. also from Luther Seminary. Karin has served in higher education administration, congregational ministry, did her CPE internship at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, completed CPE residency at North Memorial Health, and worked at Children’s Minnesota. She is a trained spiritual director and spiritual direction supervisor.

Karin lives with her husband, kids, and dog in south Minneapolis where she can be found surrounded by books and yarn and wandering by the lakes.

Level I/II CPE internship programs

Currently accepting applications. (2 positions open)

North – Robbinsdale Hospital is offering a part-time (25 hours/week) semester unit of CPE from August 31- December 17, 2026. CPE group will meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Students will serve as hospital chaplains for an additional 16 hours a week, including shifts as the on-call chaplain with options for day, evening and weekend when there are staff chaplains or residents in the building. No overnight on-call shifts. Unit tuition is $750.

North – Robbinsdale Hospital is offering a part-time (18 hours/week) extended unit of CPE that will run from March 1 to August 13, 2027. The group will meet one day per week on Monday afternoons for 5 hours. Students will serve as hospital chaplains for an additional 13 hours a week. including shifts as the on-call chaplain with options for day, evening and weekend when there are staff chaplains or residents in the building. No overnight on-call. Unit tuition is $750.

North – Maple Grove Hospital is a site placement option for the above part-time unit. It would be a med/surg and Birth Center/NICU placement. Unit tuition is $750, but can be significantly reduced for students with previous CPE in exchange for overnight on-call coverage.

Currently accepting applications. (2 positions open)

North – Robbinsdale Hospital is offering a part-time (28 hours/week) semester unit of CPE from May 3- August 6, 2027. CPE seminar group will meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Students will serve as hospital chaplains for an additional 19 hours a week, including shifts as the on-call chaplain with options for day, evening and weekend when there are staff chaplains or residents in the building. No overnight on-call shifts. Unit tuition is $750.

CPE residency program

Residency positions are filled for 2026-27. We will begin accepting applications for 2027-28 in Fall of 2026.

There is no application fee. The first unit tuition is $750, and the following units are $450. The stipend for the current year is $43,888. Employee benefits include medical, dental, 401k, and tuition reimbursement including CPE tuition and continuing education, PTO includes 21 days per year plus 6 paid holidays. Admissions requirements include one previous unit of Level 1 CPE. Interviews will be arranged by the CPE Program Supervisor.

Materials can be emailed to CPE@northmemorial.com or mailed to North – Robbinsdale Hospital – C/O Spiritual Care at 3300 Oakdale Ave N, Robbinsdale, MN 55422.

Applying to the program

It’s free and simple to get started with us. Download the standard application form and email the completed document to Rev. Kim Goodman, CPE Certified Educator and Program Supervisor.

Download CPE application

$750 (deposit due upon admission, balance due on the first day of the CPE unit)

North Memorial Health has been and continues to be committed to equal employment opportunity. North Memorial Health does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, marital status, familial status, status with regard to public assistance, sexual orientation, gender identity, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, or any other characteristic protected by law (“protected classes”).

North – Robbinsdale Hospital CPE Program guarantees to its students the right to inspect and review education records, to seek to amend them, to specify control over release of record information, and to file a complaint against the program for alleged violations of these Family Education and Privacy Act (FERPA) rights.

North – Robbinsdale Hospital is an accredited center to offer programs of Clinical Pastoral Education by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education Inc. (ACPE). ACPE is the premier, DOE-recognized organization that provides the highest quality CPE programs for spiritual care professionals of any faith and in any setting.

ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care and Education
1 Concourse Pkwy, Suite 800
Atlanta, GA 30328
404-320-1472

North – Robbinsdale Hospital CPE Program
763-581-2353

North – Robbinsdale Hospital Spiritual Care
763-581-2350

Rev. Kim Goodman
CPE@northmemorial.com
763-581-2353

CPE application guide

What makes a good CPE application?

A reasonably full account of your life.

  • Describe significant people and relationships (e.g., family of origin, past, and current) and key events and how they have shaped who you are as a person today.
  • Growing up in your family, what strengths, weaknesses, and issues that has raised for you in your journey?

A description of your spiritual growth and development.

  • Include a thorough narrative of your faith or spiritual journey, including the highs and lows and the significant relationships and events that have shaped your faith.
  • Discuss your call to ministry or service (past, present, future)

A description of your work (vocational) history.

  • Besides the laundry list, what skills have you gained from your past work experience that relate to spiritual care ministry?
  • How might they help you in your future pastoral work?

An account of a “helping incident” in which you were the person who provided the help.

  • A verbatim with your personal self-evaluation is fine to include.
  • What learning goals do you have to develop further competence in pastoral ministry?
What will help us become interested in seriously considering your application?
  • Be as open about who you are and as convincing as possible in selling us on the idea that you are coming toward the learning process to discover new things about yourself in order to become a more effective and creative minister.
  • A good cover letter indicates why you have applied to a particular center and says briefly and concisely what you want to learn in that particular clinical setting.
  • Research the program and speak to what they have to offer.

You are required to complete an admission interview with an ACPE Certified Educator.

What are we looking for during the interview?
  • Openness – to an interaction with a new person in a strange situation
  • Honesty – willingness to express candidly and humbly struggles, fears, joys, and other parts about oneself which will indicate what level of openness there is to venture into a new learning experience.
  • Our questions: How is the student approaching this potential new learning experience? Why do they want to take CPE? What are they motivated to learn?
  • What are they most fearful about and what most interested in?
  • How do they relate to supervisors and authority figures in their lives?
  • How able and willing are they to be a responsible member of a clinical spiritual care team whose members need to depend on one another on a daily basis?
  • How willing are they to engage a collegial learning process with peers, where there is opportunity to give and receive constructive, critical feedback?
What do you do once the application has been sent to a center?
  • If you haven’t heard something from a program, inquire about where you are in their admission process. Find out about an interview and when they will decide about your application.
  • On our end we are wondering, how assertive is the student and how interested are they in pursuing this learning process?
  • If the student is required to take CPE and they are not coming toward the learning process, the motivation for learning is most likely low and might indicate that this person may not make a good candidate for CPE.
  • If you have been admitted by a CPE program and have committed to that program, communicate your decision to the other programs to which you applied.