Two dozen clergy members spent a few days in Radnor this week, learning the difficult task of becoming police chaplains, writes Mike DeNardo of CBS Philly.

The stress of police work can take its toll in the form of substance abuse, suicide, and dealing with death in the line of duty.

According to DeNardo, Reverend Gary Holden, chaplain of the Vineland, N.J. police department, trained the prospective police chaplains, mostly from Delco, on how they can help officers cope.

Holden founded the nonprofit Police Chaplain Program in 2011.

“We go into scenes, we do fatals, we do death notifications, we train our chaplains on how to do death notifications,” said Holden, “things that a clergyperson might not always do – or have the opportunity to do.”

The training session did not hold back.

“We give them a number of things,” Holden told DeNardo. “We show a lot of videos, a lot of heavy videos — videos of cops being killed. We have a class on suicide. We get into a lot of heavy stuff because they need to be aware of that.”

Holden’s program encourages clergy members to ride along with officers, to give them a better sensitivity to the realities of police life.

Click here to read more about Delco clergy training to become police chaplains from CBS Philly.