Social Work senior Matt Thompson recently presented a poster at the Baccalaureate Program Director’s (BPD) national conference on social work education.  His poster, which was selected to be a part of the student conference within the larger BPD conference, was entitled “Welcome Home: Current Military Pre and Post Separation and Transition Protocol.”  This poster provided an overview of current practices that are followed as men and women leave the armed services. As Thompson discussed the poster with conference attendees, he noted areas where policies should be reviewed as well as areas where social work expertise could be utilized to provide more effective services to new veterans.   Thompson, drawing on his social work education as well as his experience in the military, summed it up this way:  “Compassion and caring are not substitutes for action and advocacy.”

Assistant Professor of Social Work Julie Hunt and Associate Professor of Social Work Sabrina Sullenberger also presented at the BPD conference.  Sullenberger co-presented a workshop entitled “High-impact Educational Practices in Teaching Social Work Research” with colleagues from Indiana University.   Hunt’s roundtable presentation was entitled ““Integrating Spiritual Sensitivity into Cultural Competence Education for our Changing World.”

Reflecting on her work at the conference, Hunt said, “It was an honor to lead a roundtable discussion with a diverse group of colleagues from universities around the country on ways to integrate spiritually sensitive content in their social work curriculum. We had a productive and meaningful sharing of ideas, and their interest in this conversation has continued as we have been corresponding since the meeting, sharing syllabi, and ideas for readings and course assignments.”

Social work juniors in Dr. Jennifer Crowell’s Policy II class recently participated in Social Work Day on the Hill at the Tennessee Legislative Plaza.  They met with legislators, observed committee meetings and participated in a policy presentation and poster competition. Prior to the Day on the Hill, students worked in class to identify bills under consideration at the state level, and analyze the bills in the context of social work values, ethics and populations served, and then made recommendations on how to improve the bills they had studied.  This collective work led the class to identify one topic to focus on for the policy presentation, the issue of Human Trafficking in Tennessee.  At Day on the Hill, junior Christi Sidwell was selected as Belmont’s representative to speak in front of a crowd of students, faculty and social workers from across the state about Senate Bill 1655 and House Bill 1870. Christi spoke passionately about the issue in Tennessee and also about how the bills as proposed could be strengthened to ultimately provide better services and seek justice for people in Tennessee who have been trafficked.  The hard work of all the students was recognized when Belmont University was announced the winner of the undergraduate competition.

Bryan Griffith, a junior social work major at Belmont, said, “Social Work Day on the Hill gave me great insight into how our state’s policies are influenced by social workers by people who see and experience social issues firsthand. I got to sit in on a committee hearing and see how research based on the reports of people who work directly with (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) families can be presented to the representatives who write laws about (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) eligibility. It was an exciting experience for me because I really got to see how legislature works. Only so much can be understood about how our government functions through reading from a textbook. If more people were to take a trip to legislative plaza, meet their representative, and observe their representative’s interactions with other members of the general assembly and organizations, we might have a better understanding of our legislature’s behavior.”