ENCOUNTERS
A Shared Research Initiative 2026-2028
Temple of the Forgotten & Sacred Streets
Pillar One - Sacred Care
This Pillar’s purpose is to identify touchpoints and opportunities within social services and critically adjacent systems where spiritual care practices can be woven in to benefit recipients and providers. While we recognize that professional spiritual care providers may not be present in every encounter, we believe service providers can learn ways of seeing, being and animating care that is more deeply humanizing and dignifying—to both their clients and themselves. Along the journey of homelessness and exilic poverty, there are critical moments where practices of spiritual care are profoundly needed. We are committed to identifying those moments, training providers such as volunteers, social workers, case managers and first responders, to recognize them, and ensure they are empowered to respond with deep presence and care.
Evaluation & Impact Framework
Objectives
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Map opportunities for spiritual care within homelessness support systems
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Train service providers and front-line workers in spiritually informed, trauma-aware care
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Shift organizational culture toward dignity- and relationship-based models
Evaluation Questions
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How do frontline staff and chaplains perceive spiritual care’s value after training?
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What touchpoints exist within the Homeless Care Continuum where spiritual care can have the greatest impact?
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How does integration of spiritual care affect client/provider well-being?
Outputs & Metrics
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Stage One: Four Rountables over two years - includes service providers, first responders, etc. who will go over the experience (both on a broad scale and using location/experience-specific examples) of homelessness and find touchpoints where spiritual care can be integrated into the system.
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Record and create a report of the four different roundtables
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One Roundtable event that is just focused on transitional housing and what happens and how we can integrate spiritual care into it, and then using that applied work to evaluate the efficacy of spiritual care.
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Trainings/workshops delivered: 10 across partner orgs
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Number of participants trained: 50–100 social service staff
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Post-training feedback: published and analyzed
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“Integrating Spiritual Care into Homeless Services: A Practitioners Guide”:
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Toolkit and Homelessness Ecosystem map of spiritual care touchpoints: 1 public map + internal strategic use.
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Include blessings, memorial service outlines, intentions, inspirational stories, resources, readings.
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Case studies or organizational consultations: 2–3 published or summarized