{"id":2810,"date":"2014-03-25T12:35:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T18:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/?p=2810"},"modified":"2014-03-31T07:07:55","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T13:07:55","slug":"belmont-student-honored-as-social-work-student-of-the-year-by-local-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/2014\/03\/25\/belmont-student-honored-as-social-work-student-of-the-year-by-local-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"Belmont student honored as Social Work Student of the Year by local organization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThompsonMedium\"<\/a>Matthew Thompson, a senior Social Work student at Belmont University, recently was honored as the undergraduate Student of the Year by the Middle Tennessee branch of the National Association of Social Workers.\u00a0 The award honors a student who has created a positive influence on classmates for the profession, and maintained academic achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatt has demonstrated a tremendous aptitude for scholarship and scholastic activity,\u201d said Dr. Sabrina Sullenberger, Social Work Department Chairperson.\u00a0 She adds, \u201cHe is also a dedicated and courageous individual, respected and valued by his colleagues and peers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson is a decorated Army veteran and a bronze star recipient who served honorably in the Middle East and Persian Gulf in 2002 and then was again deployed in Iraq in 2007.\u00a0\u00a0 He was the recipient of a competitive national fellowship through The Mission Continues, in which he was awarded a 10 month grant designed to provide a stipend for veterans working in social service fields.\u00a0 He was one of 80 grantees from a field of just under 2200.<\/p>\n

Thompson has deep and abiding commitment to the needs of veterans in the community.\u00a0 He has served with Operation Standown for the last 10 months and in that time has engaged in peer-to-peer counseling, employment counseling and advisement, and job search assistance.\u00a0 He has worked extensively with several clients in helping them overcome and recover from chronic homelessness, and other traumatic and tragic situations and circumstances \u2013 often going above and beyond his hourly commitment and engaging in support and work after hours.<\/p>\n

In addition to fulfilling these duties, Thompson has worked independently to form a community coalition of student veterans groups in and around the Nashville area joining forces with other university communities to increase peer to peer support for vets, foster greater knowledge of available resources, and share information and knowledge to increase veteran retention and reintegration. Currently the coalition consists of 6 area institutions that include Belmont, Lipscomb, TSU, and MTSU, SAE, and Lincoln Tech.<\/p>\n

Thompson is in demand as a speaker who shares his personal journey and his knowledge regarding veteran services so as to raise awareness of veteran issues within the community.\u00a0 He is a published author, whose pieces have appeared in Newsweek and The Massachusetts Review.\u00a0 He recently had a poster presentation about veterans and their unique needs accepted by the national conference of the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors.\u00a0 He is a member of the Phi Alpha Social Work honor society.<\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s service extends to his student peers at Belmont, where he is president of the Social Work student organization and the Veterans Student Group, and is a member of the Dean\u2019s Advisory Council for the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Thompson, a senior Social Work student at Belmont University, recently was honored as the undergraduate Student of the Year by the Middle Tennessee branch of the National Association of Social Workers.\u00a0 The award honors a student who has created … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chs","category-social-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2810"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2823,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810\/revisions\/2823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}