Volume 4, Number 5 - April 2009
In This Issue: Careers in Aging
For Careers in Aging Week (April 12—18), a national awareness initiative sponsored by GSA and AGHE, this issue of Aging Times features reflections from stakeholders involved in attracting students to gerontological social work.
Recruiting Students to Gerontological Social Work:
An Admissions Perspective
Tim Colenback, University of Michigan
The assistant dean for student services at the University of Michigan describes how the School of Social Work recruits 10% of each MSW class to gerontological social work.
Highlighting Gerontology:
A Career Services Perspective
Carol Doelling, Washington University in St. Louis
The director of career services at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis provides advice for including career services as part of gerontological social work outreach.
Discovering Gerontological Social Work:
A Student Perspective
Michelle Fucci, MSW Student, University of Michigan
One student describes how spending time with an older adult led her to change careers.
Resources on Careers in Aging
New Student Web Site from the CSWE Gero-Ed Center
The new Web page from the CSWE Gero-Ed Center features information on careers, research, and news regarding social work and aging geared towards students.
2009 Careers in Aging Week
From April 12—18, social work programs across the country celebrate Careers in Aging Week, a national event sponsored by the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education.
Gero-Ed Center Updates
Rosen Panel Will Debut at CSWE's 2009 APM: Submit Your Nomination by May 1!
The newest offering of the Gero-Ed Track will feature three programs that have made great strides in infusing gerontology into their social work curricula.
CSWE Joins Eldercare Workforce Alliance
The newly formed alliance aims to build awareness around and propose solutions for eldercare workforce issues.
CSWE Press Publishes New Book on GSWI
Edited by Nancy Hooyman, Transforming Social Work Education: The First Decade of the Hartford Geriatric Social Work Initiative celebrates a decade of funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation.
Joy Ernst Wins Mit Joyner Gerontology Leadership Award
Presented at the 2009 Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors Annual Conference, the award promotes leadership in gerontological social work practice for undergraduate students.
Recruiting Students to Gerontological Social Work: An Admissions Perspective
By Tim Colenback
Exciting options abound in the field of gerontological social work. Difficult economic times highlight the usefulness of having more talented and trained social workers ready to work in this underserved area of social work. Given the current tight job market, admissions departments have an important opportunity to advise prospective students to fully investigate the intriguing options available to social workers working with and on the behalf of aging people.
At the University of Michigan, our admissions department has long highlighted the rewarding nature of gerontological social work and the need for talented people to develop the skills necessary to provide quality services in this area. We have been successful in consistently attracting on average 30 new MSW students each year (10% of our incoming MSW class) to our Aging in Families in Society concentration by highlighting the following:
- The rewarding nature of working with older people. Rarely do social workers receive more positive feedback from their clients than those working with this population.
- An opportunity to work with prominent faculty members. Students work to improve skills, knowledge and research related to working with or on the behalf of older adults with distinguished faculty such as Lou Burgio, Letha Chadiha, Ruth Dunkle, Berit Ingersoll-Dayton, Lydia Li, and Robert Taylor.
- Several focused curricular options, including the concentration in Aging in Families in Society, an interdisciplinary Certificate in Aging and a well funded geriatric scholarship program. Specific promotional materials have been developed highlighting the Geriatric Scholarship Program, which provides scholarship aid ranging from $20,000 to $40,000.
- The demographic reality that will lead to continued fun, challenging, and rewarding opportunities working with or on the behalf of aging populations as clinical social workers, case managers, supervisors, managers, program planners, community organizers, policymakers and evaluators.
Given the rewarding nature of this work and the needs of our citizens now and in the future, society would benefit if social work as a profession and schools of social work attracted more talented social workers into this field. By effectively highlighting the rewarding nature of this work and providing funding for interested and talented prospective students, admissions departments can use their unique position to help the social work profession meet the social work needs of an aging society in the future.
Tim Colenback has been the assistant dean for student services at the University of Michigan for the past decade. His work over the past 16 years has focused on providing student services, recruiting new social workers to the profession and providing career guidance. In his free time, he also enjoys political organizing.
Highlighting Gerontology: A Career Services Perspective
By Carol Doelling
The expansion of gerontological social work has been an exciting development for the career services department at Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work to support. Over the years, faculty research projects added new life, training grants spurred new community relationships, and collaborative initiatives enhanced field infrastructure. As our gerontology curriculum took shape, career services deliberately incorporated aging content to increase interest among all students and support our students seeking careers in aging.
From new student orientation to alumni surveys, career services collaborated with faculty, gerontology student leadership, and curriculum advisory committee members. During new student orientation, we used the pre-MSW and post-MSW resumes of a recent gerontology graduate to demonstrate how new master’s students can use the resume as a tool for career planning and professional development during their academic program. In job search workshops we focused on gerontology examples of job descriptions, skills lists, job search resources, elevator pitches, and talking points for interviews.
We worked with the gerontology student group to co-sponsor their career panels and attended their annual capstone project presentations and other events. As part of the career services all-school professional development days, gerontology students hosted sessions and moderated panels. Our local professionals from the aging services community are organized in a dynamic coalition as well as specialty groups. These groups are gifts that support our gerontology program and Career Services, always welcoming and willing to participate in programs and training for students.
Whether your social work program has its own career services office or your campus career center supports your students, ask those staff members to collaborate with you on programs and materials. Educate them on the specifics of the gerontology field, request workshops just for your students, and introduce career staff to your community professionals. Provide them with aging-specific resources and samples; ask them to use those in routine workshops to increase awareness of gerontology social work careers. Career specialists are eager to work with you in preparing your students for transitions into the field.
Carol Nesslein Doelling is director of career services at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. She provides comprehensive career services for students and alumni, recruitment services for employers, and information on the social work job market to faculty. Her book, Social Work Career Development: A Handbook for Job Hunting and Career Planning, NASW Press, was published in 1997 and 2005. She co-founded and serves on the steering committee of The National Career Development in Social Work Education Group.
Discovering Gerontological Social Work: A Student Perspective
By Michelle Fucci
It was supposed to be just one hour a week. I had decided to volunteer as a “friendly visitor” for one hour a week—leaving the office on my lunch break to sit with legally-blind Margaret and keep her company in her too-small apartment. Besides the occasional afternoon playing billiards at my grandmother’s housing complex, I had not spent any extensive time with older adults. On a whim, I decided to give friendly visiting a chance.
Before I knew it, one hour each Thursday had turned into one and a half hours, which soon became two hours. Sneaking away from my cubicle each week felt like I was cheating on my day job as an administrative assistant in a collegiate fundraising office—I was having an illicit fling with geriatric social work.
My lunches with Margaret were invigorating, but that alone is not the reason I decided to work with older adults. Yes, Margaret would give me advice on how to cook authentic Italian food or regale me with stories about working in New York City as a telegraph operator. But she also made me think, for the first time really, about some of the painful issues that can face older adults: social isolation, financial insecurity, and what can happen when an older adult just wants to give up.
Over the course of the year and a half that I got to know Margaret, I also met Andrea, the social worker in Margaret’s senior apartment building. As Andrea described how she saw her role—simply as a helper—I realized social work with older adults was the field in which I wanted to work.
It did take me a while to break it off with my day job, but eventually I was accepted to the University of Michigan School of Social Work. There I met an exceptional group of like-minded students all with a passion for working with older adults. Instructors like Karen Staller and Janet Ray encouraged and engaged me to see the connections between the classroom and the community. Each learning experience brings with it both challenge and opportunity.
Looking back, I wish that I had had more knowledge, more information, and more fully-developed skills to talk Margaret through what was troubling her. Now, with the education that I am receiving from the University of Michigan, I know that soon I will possess those skills. What started as just one hour a week has turned into a lifetime, and that is just fine with me.
Michelle Fucci is an MSW student and geriatric scholar at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. She holds a B.A. from Hamilton College in English Literature and an MS from Boston College in Administrative Studies. Michelle is currently completing her field placement at the Luella Hannan Memorial Foundation in Detroit, MI.
New Student Web Site from the Gero-Ed Center
Continuing to promote gerontological competencies among graduates of BSW and MSW programs, the CSWE Gero-Ed Center has created a new student-centered Web page called the Student Corner.
The Student Corner portal of the CSWE Gero-Ed Center Web site provides information specifically geared towards students concerning the field of gerontological social work. Some resources on the new Student Corner include:
- Lists of professional aging-related organizations
- Resources for finding a job, including articles on gero careers and links to job listings
- Catalog of social work programs offering gerontology
- Reasons to consider gero social work
- Updated links to funding opportunities, activities, and current events concerning aging
Ideal for educating students about this important field and for providing graduates with career information, the Student Corner is a new and exciting resource for admissions departments, career counselors, and BSW and MSW social work departments.
Rosen Panel Will Debut at CSWE's 2009 APM: Submit Your Nomination!
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2009 Anita Rosen Panel Session for Best Practices in Gerontological Infusion at the CSWE Annual Program Meeting.
Three BSW, MSW, or joint BSW/MSW programs, each represented by one faculty member and one student, will be selected to present and discuss their exemplary curricular changes at the Rosen Panel. Each panel participant will receive a conference attendance stipend of $500. The three selected social work programs will also receive a Best Practices Award from the CSWE Gero-Ed Center.
For more information and information on the nomination process, please visit the Rosen Panel page. The deadline to nominate a program is Friday, May 1.
The Rosen Panel takes the place of The Anita Rosen Gerontology Awards for Outstanding Student Poster, which ended in 2008.
CSWE Joins Eldercare Workforce Alliance
In an effort to ensure that our nation can meet the need for appropriately trained healthcare providers, direct-care workers, and family caregivers to care for the growing number of older Americans, the Council on Social Work Education recently joined the newly formed Eldercare Workforce Alliance (EWA).
EWA was formed in direct response to the groundbreaking report "Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce" from the Institute of Medicine (IOM). This publication concluded that America’s eldercare workforce is dangerously understaffed and unprepared to care for the rapidly growing number of older adults in the United States.
EWA's goal is to educate policymakers and the public about the burgeoning eldercare crisis and propose practical solutions to strengthen our eldercare workforce and improve the quality of care provided to older Americans. A project of the Tides Center and the Tides Advocacy Fund and supported by grants from the Atlantic Philanthropies, Inc. and the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Alliance includes 28 leading organizations concerned about education, training, and provision of quality care that represent consumers and their families as well as healthcare providers and direct-care workers.
For a full description, visit the EWA Web site.
CSWE Press Publishes New Book on GSWI
CSWE Press has just released Transforming Social Work Education: The First Decade of the Hartford Geriatric Social Work Initiative, edited by Nancy Hooyman.
Celebrating a decade of funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation, each chapter of this book highlights various aspects of the Geriatric Social Work Initiative (GSWI), including competency-based education, faculty and doctoral student scholarly development, models for curricular and organizational change, community partnerships, and strategies for sustainability.
This book is available through the CSWE Press Bookstore.
Joy Ernst Wins Mit Joyner Gerontology Leadership Award
Joy Ernst, associate professor and director of the undergraduate social work program at Hood College, was awarded the Mit Joyner Gerontology Leadership Award at the 2009 Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors (BPD) Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ.
Ernst, who holds a PhD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and an MSW from Rutgers University, also received a John A. Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholars award in 2006. In 2002, she was part of the team who helped Hood College receive a Geriatric Enrichment in Social Work Education grant. She later became a mentor to faculty participating in the first Curriculum Development Institute.
The Mit Joyner Gerontology Leadership Award was created in 2005 by BPD and the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work in honor of Mildred "Mit" Joyner in order to promote leadership in gerontological social work practice for undergraduate students through scholarship, best practices and/or community connections.
