Grant supports curricular outreach to older adults

Skidmore is one of 20 colleges and universities throughout the United States to receive a grant from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) to support hands-on opportunities with older adults for students likely to enter direct practice.

The funds are part of a nearly $150,000 pool distributed to designated schools by the CSWE Gero-Ed Center?s BSW Experiential Learning (BEL) Program. The goal of the program is to support new initiatives that will introduce bachelor of social work students to gerontological learning experiences.

Moore

Skidmore?s grant totals $7,460 to be paid over two years. It will support the following gerontological experiential learning activities in the college?s Social Work curriculum: interviews by students of older adult mentors and their youth mentees from a mentoring program for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, two intergenerational events focusing on art and music involving Skidmore students and students from a local mentoring program, a tour of housing options for older adults, videotaping oral histories of nursing home residents, and the development of an aging-specific field placement for social work majors in their final year of college.

	Mills-Dick

At Skidmore, Crystal Dea Moore, associate professor of social work, and Kelly Mills-Dick, lecturer in the department, wrote the grant-winning proposal. Said Moore, ?The funding received from the BEL Program will provide a majority of Skidmore?s Social Work students with opportunities to interact with older adults in a variety of settings that are intended to lay the foundation for working with seniors as social work professionals. The need for professionals with an affinity for, and training in, gerontology continues to increase, and Skidmore?s Social Work Program is making a concerted effort to spark an interest in this rewarding area of practice among baccalaureate students.?

Research has indicated that only five percent of those BSW students polled in the United States express interest in working with older adults. This number is very small, compared to the 60,000?70,000 direct practitioners needed by 2020 to meet the needs of older people and their families, according to the CSWE. ??

BEL programs will vary based on the school?s unique student population, but aim to dispel any existing misconceptions or fears about working in the field of aging. Among the schools that won grants are Ball State University, Wayne State University, Fordham University, Loyola University, and the University of Maine in Bangor.

Funding for the BEL Program has been made possible by the John A. Hartford Foundation. Founded in 1929, the John A. Hartford Foundation champions training, research, and service system innovations that promote the health and independence of America?s older adults. Through its grant making, the foundation seeks to strengthen the nation?s capacity to provide effective, affordable care to this rapidly increasing older population by educating
?aging-prepared? health professionals (physicians, nurses, social workers), and developing innovations that improve and better integrate health and supportive services.

The Council on Social Work Education is a nonprofit national association representing more than 3,000 individual members, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. Founded in 1952, this partnership of educational and professional institutions, social welfare agencies, and private citizens is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as the sole accrediting agency for social work education.