Faculty News Spring/Summer 2008

Donna Henderson receives 2008 ACA Professional Development Award.

The award recognizes an ACA member who has developed techniques and systems that have strengthened, expanded, enhanced, improved and/or otherwise had demonstrable benefits to clients. Nominees mentioned numerous ways she had enhanced the professional development of counselors, counseling students and clients including the publication of texts under in many school counseling programs, and co-writing a curriculum for training Mental Health Facilitators internationally for the World Health organization.

Donna Henderson is presented Professional Development Award at 2008 ACA Convention.

Gladding, Veach, Newsome and Henderson receive 2008 ACA Counselor Education Advocacy award.

The faculty was recognized for providing opportunities for students to be involved in advocacy and leadership activities. In particular, faculty members Gladding, Veach, Henderson and Newsome won an ethics and leadership grant and took 29 of 30 graduate students to a Legislative Institute sponsored by the American Counseling Association in Washington, DC, on February 25-27, 2007. This activity involved lobbying on Capitol Hill with senators and representatives on mental health and human welfare issues. In previous summers, Henderson and Veach have taken students to Raleigh to lobby state legislators on school counseling and community mental health issues.

WFU faculty and students with the ACA President.

Debbie Newsome became chair of WFU Institutional Review Board

She had previously served on the board for three years. The WFU IRB board reviews research proposals from all schools connected with WFU including the undergraduate, graduate, law, business and medical schools.

Laura Veach serves as the counseling faculty liason in a new academic partnership between the Department of Counseling and the Department of Surgery Trauma Center at WFU Baptist Medical Center

Dr. Veach has entered into an academic partnership with the Trauma Center & Department of General Surgery at WFUBMC that will provide ongoing research & clinical training opportunities for students. In the spring of 2007, four students worked with Veach and Newsome on a pilot study to supply Alcohol Screening & Brief Counseling Interventions (SBI) for patients with alcohol-related trauma. In Spring 2008, Dr. Veach acted as the on-site supervisor at the Trauma Center for 10-12 hours/week to train a 20 hours/week counseling student intern in SBI and in conducting clinical assessments & diagnosing of substance use disorders on the Trauma Unit. She has been granted a research leave for the academic year of 2008-2009 and will be working on research in the same area funded by grants won collaboratively with WFUBMC.