FOR CLERGY AND PASTORAL CAREGIVERS
Grief Coach Certification for Clergy and Pastoral Caregivers
You are a pastor, chaplain, or pastoral caregiver, and sitting with people in loss is already part of your calling.
Non-clinical grief support is offered to anyone, whatever their belief, and clergy, chaplains, and pastoral caregivers already provide a great deal of it. Board certification in grief care, which is non-clinical grief support, gives people outside your tradition a way to verify that work, whatever your title.
The distinction
Why certify if you already do pastoral care?
Because pastoral care is bounded by the community that authorizes it. Board certification is not. It makes your grief work verifiable to people outside your tradition, gives organizations that cannot evaluate a denominational credential something they can check, and is portable if your role changes.
What ordination, commissioning, or a denominational credential establishes is your standing inside a tradition. That standing is real, and within your community it is sufficient.
It certifies a vocation rather than grief-specific preparation. Your grief work may be the part of your ministry you are most trusted for, yet no one outside your tradition has assessed that preparation against a published standard, and the non-clinical part of your work has no published scope of its own.
A hospice bereavement coordinator, an employee assistance program, or a family with no faith affiliation may have no way to evaluate a denominational credential. That is not doubt about you. They may simply have no reference point, and a credential with published requirements gives them one.
Your standing travels within your tradition. A board credential can be checked by anyone.
The difference it makes
What board certification changes
You can serve beyond your congregation with a credential others can verify, and carry the work with you if your role or setting changes.
Reach beyond the congregation
Non-clinical grief support within a published scope lets you serve people outside your faith community, including those with no faith affiliation, in a frame that does not assume a shared tradition.
A credential secular organizations can check
Hospices, funeral homes, employers, employee assistance programs, and clinicians can verify a board credential in the registry. A denominational credential may not be something they are able to evaluate.
Portable across roles
Ministry roles change, calls end, and chaplaincy contracts conclude. A board credential is yours rather than the institution's, and it does not require anyone to vouch for you afterward.
A published scope you can point to
An enforceable Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice states where non-clinical support ends and clinical care begins, which is a boundary a pastoral caregiver may otherwise be asked to hold alone.
Verification is the mechanism underneath all four. Every certificant is issued a credential number, and anyone you give it to can confirm your name and whether your credential is Active, Expired, or Revoked in the INBGC registry, at no cost and without involving you or your institution.
Resources, coverage, and Find a Grief Coach
Public Resource Center. The board's Public Resource Center is free to everyone, whether or not you are certified. It covers how referrals work and who makes them, how to explain scope and referral thresholds in a conversation, and how to be findable and independently verifiable. The resources exist so practitioners are prepared to serve grieving people well. They are not business training, and they make no claim about what a practice will earn. An optional Advanced Resource Center is available for $99 per month, month to month, and is not included in certification or renewal. See the resource centers.
Liability coverage. Active certificants qualify for group rates on professional liability coverage through INBGC's insurance partners.
Find a Grief Coach. Active certificants are included in Find a Grief Coach, where individuals can submit a request for support.
For the full case, see why get board certified in grief care. For what the process involves end to end, see certification.
Scope
Pastoral care and non-clinical grief support are not the same
Pastoral care is offered within a tradition and often includes spiritual formation, ritual, and the resources of a faith community. Non-clinical grief support is offered to anyone, regardless of belief, within a published scope. Many pastoral caregivers provide both. They are different services and the distinction matters.
Offered within a faith tradition, to those who share it or seek it. May include prayer, ritual, sacrament, scripture, and the accompaniment of a community. Authorized by the tradition.
Offered to anyone, regardless of belief. Structured, confidential support within a published non-clinical scope. Verified by an independent board.
Certification does not ask you to set aside what you believe. It asks you to be clear with the person you are supporting about which service they are receiving, so that someone seeking grief support is not receiving formation they did not ask for, and someone seeking pastoral care is not receiving something else instead.
The standard also requires supporting a person's own faith as a resource for meaning, following their lead, whether or not you share it. That applies equally to someone whose beliefs differ from yours and to someone who holds none.
The Code of Ethics addresses this directly, and scope of practice and referral is one of the six Board Examination topic areas.
Eligibility
Does your training qualify?
Pastoral training with grief and bereavement content can count. Clinical Pastoral Education units, seminary coursework, chaplaincy training, and denominational continuing education all count toward the grief-specific education requirement where they cover the six topic areas, and education from more than one source may be combined.
Units of Clinical Pastoral Education that include grief and bereavement content count toward the education requirement. If you hold CPE units, bring the documentation from your training center.
What can count as grief-specific education
- Clinical Pastoral Education units, documented through your training center
- Seminary coursework in pastoral care, bereavement, thanatology, or death and dying
- Chaplaincy training, including hospice and hospital chaplaincy programs
- Denominational continuing education in grief, funeral ministry, or care of the bereaved
- Grief-specific training from any qualified provider
What is assessed is whether the six topic areas are covered between them. INBGC sets no hours minimum, because hours measure time spent rather than competence. Where an area is not covered, you close that gap through any qualified provider. INBGC does not provide foundational grief support training at any price, which is what allows the board to review any provider's education without a stake in the outcome.
Practice hours and what else is required
- 50 verified practice hours of non-clinical grief support provided to grieving people. Grief support you have delivered pastorally counts. Paid or unpaid, in a congregational, hospice, hospital, or community setting. Group sessions count when they can be verified, and clinical treatment hours do not count. Hours are documented through your signed attestation plus one supporting record. No congregant or client participates in the process
- Attestation to the Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice
- A passing result on the Board Examination, at 80 percent across six equally weighted topic areas
- A government-issued photo ID and a computer that can run the proctoring platform. A desktop or laptop with webcam and microphone. Tablets and phones are not supported
The Certification Path is the single route to the Board Certified in Grief Care (BCGC) credential.
Not sure whether your training counts? Write to [email protected] before you apply. Program Administration will review it with you at no cost. See the full eligibility requirements.
Fees
What does it cost?
The certification fee is $1,295, or three payments of $450 on the payment plan. Annual renewal is $125. All fees are non-refundable, with a limited exception for withdrawal before review begins.
Covers application and eligibility review, education review against the six topic areas, one Practice Exam attempt with a topic-area breakdown, the proctored Board Examination, verified practice hours review, credential issuance, and your first year of certification.
The payment plan is three payments of $450, totaling $1,350, billed directly by INBGC. You may complete every step, including the Board Examination, while the plan is running, and the credential is issued once the balance is paid in full. See the funding options.
If you have a continuing education or professional development allowance through your denomination or employer, ask whether it applies. INBGC provides itemized invoices and documentation for a finance office or denominational treasurer.
Cost a barrier? The INBGC Access Award reduces the certification fee at three tiers. The award reduces the fee and never the standard. Full fee schedule.
Common questions
Next step
Extend the care beyond the congregation
Creating your account takes about a minute and does not enroll or charge you. You choose how you pay in the next step.
Part of how to become a grief coach. See also the path for healthcare professionals if you serve in a hospice or hospital setting, and grief coach vs. therapist for the scope distinction.