Healthcare Scholarship: American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work
Overview of the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work Award
The American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work awards its Judith Holm Memorial Student Awards to exceptional final-year graduate students in social work. The awards are granted on the basis of a contest in which final-year graduate students submit clinical papers for the Center’s review. The award is named after Judith Holm, MSS, BCD, the first president of the Center.
To qualify for the award, you must be a final-year graduate student in a qualified social work program and you must be intending on becoming a clinical social worker upon graduation. The clinical paper you submit must be based on an intervention that takes place during your final-year field placement assignment.
In the paper, you must recount the intervention process, discussing your consideration of relevant social work theories and displaying your familiarity with clinical literature. Your paper should also demonstrate how the case challenged you and influenced your development as a clinical social worker, as well as how the intervention affected the client. A wining paper will include some personal background and context, using first-person description. It will also detail your process of differential diagnosis, how you achieved therapeutic alliance with the client, and how you arrived at the most appropriate theoretical orientation to approach the intervention. A winning paper will also thoroughly address how you created a treatment plan in collaboration with the client, how you received client feedback, how you used supervision and how you adapted theory to suit the specific context of your intervention.
In addition to the Judith Holm Memorial Student Awards, the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work also awards the Howard D. Snooks Prize to the master’s program whose students submit the most eligible papers to the contest. The newly established prize is named after Howard D. Snooks, MSW, Ph.D., president of the Center’s board of directors. Both the Judith Holm Memorial Student Award and the Howard D. Snooks Prize are cash awards; the former is a one-time award of $2,000 and the latter is for $1,000.
In 2014, the deadline for the Judith Holm award was April 30th. As exact deadline dates can vary slightly from one year to the next, it’s worth consulting with the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work for current information.
