School Chaplaincy in Queensland State Schools: A Case Study

Abstract

In Queensland alone there are over 400 chaplains in more than 600 state schools, and in the other states and territories of Australia, as well as New Zealand, there are several hundred more. In Australasia, there exist examples of state school chaplaincy that are different to those in government-funded schools found elsewhere in the world. Because of the strong church-state divide in Australia and New Zealand, these chaplaincy services do not exhibit the strong links between government-funded schools and particular denominations evident in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Instead, Australasian chaplaincy services are commonly auspiced by interdenominational bodies that oversee training, funding and employment issues and that provide chaplaincy programs for state schools that desire them. These chaplaincy services are resourced through a variety of church and community funding sources, and more recently in Australia through the federal Government’s National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP). The purpose of this study was to articulate the nature and effectiveness of chaplaincy services in Queensland state schools. It sought to ascertain in which areas state school chaplaincy services were performing well, as well as how and where they could be improved, and it sought to identify those features of chaplaincy that underpinned its effectiveness.