About Sonoma County Chaplains

OUR BEHAVIORAL COMMITMENTS

• We lead with presence.

  We slow down, listen deeply, and resist the urge to fix, persuade, or rush another person's experience.

• We honor choice.

  We seek consent at every opportunity, respect autonomy, and support each person's right to make their own decisions.

• We protect confidentiality.

  We safeguard private information and communicate only what is necessary for safety, legal obligations, or continuity of care.

• We practice inclusive care.

  We welcome and serve people across differences in faith and spirituality, culture, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, language, immigration status, housing status, and relationship with law enforcement. We approach each person with curiosity and respect, adapting our care to honor their identity, culture, values, needs, and lived experience.

• We check our assumptions and biases.

  We approach every encounter with humility and curiosity, recognizing that every person's story is their own and that our own life experiences shape what we see and understand.

• We practice spiritual competency.

  All of our chaplains are trained to recognize and respond to spiritual needs as part of compassionate crisis care. We provide spiritual care only if and when it is requested, guided by the beliefs, traditions, values, and wishes of the person we are serving, not our own. We support people of all faiths and no faith, and we never proselytize or use moments of crisis to advance our own religious, political, or personal beliefs.

• We know our role.

  We work within the scope of our training and the chaplain role, maintain appropriate boundaries, and seek additional support or resources when someone's needs extend beyond what we can safely or appropriately provide.

• We work as trusted partners.

  We maintain competency in law enforcement and first-responder culture so that we can serve effectively within public-safety environments. We respect the roles, responsibilities, chain of command, operational needs, and unique cultures of law enforcement, fire, EMS, dispatch, and other first responders while remaining grounded in our role as chaplains.

• We care for those who serve.

  First responders are not only our partners; they are also the people we serve. We offer compassionate, confidential support to law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS personnel, dispatchers, and other first responders following difficult calls, loss, critical incidents, cumulative stress, and other times of need.

• We care for ourselves and one another.

  We recognize our own limits, ask for support, participate in supervision and debriefing, and help sustain a healthy volunteer community.

• We remain accountable.

  We welcome feedback, acknowledge mistakes, continue learning, and strive to improve our practice.

• We attend to the impact of our presence.

  Whether we spend five minutes or five hours with someone, we seek to support safety, agency, dignity, and connection and to ensure that our presence does not add to the harm they are already experiencing.