The JED Center

Katy Wilcox has been an ACPE Certified Educator since 2013. This is a second career for Katy. She earned a BS in Landscape Architecture from Rutgers University for her first career path.

She later earned a Master of Divinity from Yale University in 2002. She was ordained in the UCC in 2004. She completed an ACPE CPE extended unit followed by a residency at Hartford Hospital, a level I trauma hospital serving an urban population. She continued her education at UConn Health in its ACPE Certified Educator CPE program while working as staff chaplain. Katy has worked at UConn Health for 13 years. Currently she serves as part-time chaplain at UConn Health and adjunct faculty at the UConn School of Medicine.

Katy created and began developing The JED Center for Spiritual Care and Education in 2019. Susan S. Liguori joined the endeavor as partner in 2020. Katy volunteers with the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education as Accreditation Commissioner for the last three years. Katy is passionate about the transformative learning process that is available in ACPE CPE, the relevance of spiritual care in health care and alternative settings, and ways to further integrate spiritual care in the healing environment.

Susan S. Liguori received her Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and a Master of Business Administration degree from University of Wisconsin. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School.  Liguori is a Board Certified Chaplain by the National Association of Catholic Chaplains (NACC), and a CPE Certified Educator by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE).

Liguori has served as a chaplain in long-term-care facilities and hospitals in Connecticut (CT).  Within the Yale-New Haven Health System, she held positions as CPE supervisor (Greenwich Hospital), and Coordinator of CPE (Bridgeport Hospital).  Having launched a contract supervisory practice in Spring 2015, she has been privileged to lead a chaplain residency unit for Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA, chaplain intern programs for The Chaplaincy Center in Providence, RI, several chaplain residencies for Catholic Health Services of Long Island, NY and most recently, a chaplain residency unit for Westchester Medical Center, NY.

Currently, Liguori serves on the NACC Certification Commission and ACPE Accreditation committees. She is involved in a task force for the Order of Malta developing a Sacred Story Legacy project for use with Palliative Care and Hospice patients.  She is earning a certificate in Spiritual Direction from the Ignatian Center for Spirituality at Fairfield University.

Liguori is passionate about pastoral care and helping others hone their spiritual caregiving skills. In her supervisory practice, Liguori is guided by a theology of grace.  Her educational theory emphasizes the shared wisdom of the group, and a “power with” supervisory stance.  Object-relations personality theory along with family system theory form the foundation of her supervisory approach, with an emphasis on trust and acceptance of self and others.

Chaplain Liguori is a Roman Catholic lay woman, married, with three adult children. Originally from the Finger Lakes region of New York, she and her husband now live in CT.  Liguori is a published author and workshop presenter.  She enjoys walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, skiing, and international travel.

Stephan Brunelle is a Certified Educator who retired from full time chaplaincy work in 2021. He served for 18 years as the Clinical Manager of Spiritual Care at Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Gundersen’s department is busy and exciting. It hosts CPE programs in supervisory education, residency, summer, and extended internships. Stephan thrives in such an interfaith setting. He values working with other staff chaplains and certified educators to provide the best atmosphere possible for CPE Students to grow in their identities as chaplains and spiritual care givers. He looks forward to bringing his experience into the world of online CPE.

For health reasons, Stephan decided to retire from full-time work and return to his hometown of Davis, California where he currently lives with his spouse Crystal and mom. His mom just celebrated her 85th birthday and enjoys walks in the morning, and line dancing in the afternoons. She can be seen outdoors attending to the garden full of fruit trees, redwoods, and flowers. Stephan enjoys playing pickleball and riding his road bike with the local Bike Club. Stephan is growing his regular practice of meditation. He is also interested in and influenced by the psychological/spiritual approach of Internal Family Systems Theory as taught by Richard C. Schwartz.

Stephan and Crystal have been married for 32 years and have two adult children who live in the upper Midwest. Crystal is a children’s librarian. They met at Southwestern Assemblies of God Bible College in Waxahachie, Texas. Following Bible College, Stephan worked as an Associate Pastor in an Assemblies of God Church while he completed his Master of Divinity (1996) at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. He then completed a CPE residency at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, TX (1997-1998). CPE was transforming for Stephan. Stephan loved what CPE had done for him spiritually and soon discovered that he wanted to continue to work in the CPE context. Stephan was accepted into supervisory education at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, California. In 2000, he transferred his ordination from the Assemblies of God to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) where a more pluralistic approach to the gospel was welcomed. Stephan finished up his supervisory education at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas in 2002.