The NBCC Foundation, an affiliate of the National Board for Certified Counselors, Inc., recently awarded an $8,000 2018 NBCC Foundation rural scholarship to Charlotte Arrowsmith, a graduate student in the counseling program at Delta State University.
The scholarship is awarded to counseling students who are from rural communities and commit to practicing in rural areas upon graduation.
The mission of the NBCC is to leverage the power of counseling by strategically focusing resources for positive change. The foundation created the scholarship in 2009 to improve access to counseling services in rural communities, which suffer disproportionately from a lack of mental health care. More than 75 students from across the country applied for the six 2018 rural scholarships.
Arrowsmith, of Greenwood, Mississippi, will receive $8,000 to support her counseling education and recognize her commitment to the underserved. The funding will allow her to continue her counselor education and receive professional development that will help her establish a strong professional counselor identity. It will also allow her to continue her counseling social innovation, in which she is working on destigmatizing mental health in the Mississippi Delta. She hopes to be an advocate in the counseling profession for underserved populations.
“I am very excited and grateful to receive the scholarship,” said Arrowsmith. “It will assist me in furthering the mental health project I am currently working on as a part of the DSU TFA Graduate Fellows program. Additionally, I have received the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. to the upcoming NBCC counseling symposium, where I will network with other scholars and professionals in the counseling field.”
Upon graduation, Arrowsmith intends to work on bettering access to mental health services for youth in the Mississippi Delta. She believes a person’s zip code should not prevent them from access to mental health care. Arrowsmith hopes to specialize in helping those traditionally considered difficult to treat, including those who are indigent, have multiple disorders, or are involved with the criminal justice system.
She is also a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
NBCC also awarded six $8,000 military scholarships to increase the number of counselors serving fellow military personnel, veterans and their families.
For more information, or to make a gift in support of scholars like these, visit www.nbccf.org.
The NBCC Foundation is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is the nation’s premier professional certification board devoted to credentialing counselors who meet standards for the general and specialty practices of professional counseling. Currently, there are more than 64,000 board-certified counselors in the U.S. and more than 50 countries.
Learn more about Delta State’s Division of Counselor Education and Psychology at https://www.deltastate.edu/education-and-human-sciences/counselor-education-and-psychology.
