King's Thanatology Professor and student to be honoured at the Association for Death Education and Counseling Conference
January 18, 2017
Two members of the King’s community will be honoured at the 39th annual Association for Death Education and Counseling Conference in Portland, Oregon. Mark Shelvock and Professor Carrie Arnold will receive their awards at the conference in April where they will be celebrated amongst many other students and professionals within the study of Thanatology.
Mark Shelvock, a fourth year Thanatology student at King’s University College, has won the Undergraduate Student Paper Award, which he will receive at the conference. His winning essay, “A Life Worth Living: Examined and Unexamined Grief” was well received by the multidisciplinary committee that reviews all submissions. Shelvock is also the president of the Thanatology club, known as the “Than Clan”. The goal of this club is to provide educational knowledge to students regarding death, dying and bereavement through interactive social settings. Shelvock received the Thanatology award in the fall and he has now won the Undergraduate Student Paper Award at the upcoming ADEC conference in Portland.
Professor Carrie Arnold is a part-time professor in Psychology at King’s who is also working towards completing her studies. Arnold has won the ADEC Conference Scholarship Award, which is awarded to a graduate student who is seen as an up-and-coming professional in the field. She has been invited to sit on a panel at the conference in April titled Teaching that Matters: Revisiting Online Death Education.
The conference is an educational and interdisciplinary meeting for professionals working in the field of death, dying and bereavement. This conference attracts mental health professionals, social workers, funeral directors and psychologists from all over the world. The association was formed in 1976 and the conference has been held annually since 1978.
Delegates will learn about cutting-edge research and clinical practice in Thanatology on topics such as responding to the needs of grieving young adults and the power of narrative in re-telling a loss. There will also be networking and the opportunity to earn continuing education credits in disciplines like social work, marriage and family therapy.
This is not the first time King’s has been recognized by the ADEC. In 2014, King’s Professor and Thanatology program coordinator Dr. Darcy Harris was given the Death Education Award at the conference in Baltimore.
On behalf of King’s, we would like to congratulate both Mark Shelvock and Professor Carrie Arnold on their distinguished awards.
To read more about the Thanatology program at King’s, visit: http://www.kings.uwo.ca/academics/thanatology/
To learn more about the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) visit: http://www.adec.org/adec/default.aspx