Volume 3, Number 3 - December 2007
In This Issue: Civic Engagement
Civic engagement is often viewed as a benefit to both older adults and the causes to which they lend their expertise. This Aging Times presents multiple views, including a critique, of this hot topic and why it should be promoted by gerontological social work.
Civic Engagement and Aging: Asserting Social Work’s Public Purpose
Jim Hinterlong, Florida State University
Dr. Hinterlong presents the benefits of civic engagement and argues that social workers are in the best position to be leaders in this movement.
Getting Older, Staying Busy: Civic Engagement and Productive Aging
Martha Holstein, Center for Long-Term Care Reform, Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, Chicago, IL
Dr. Holstein offers a critique of civic engagement that cautions against making it an expectation with age.
Alert! Volunteering Probably Touches Your Life
Amy Cohen-Callow, PhD Student, University of Maryland
Volunteers present multiple benefits for social work. Research is needed on how agencies can effectively retain volunteers and ensure that their experiences are meaningful.
Civic Engagement Resources
Suggested Readings on Civic Engagement and "Productive Aging" (Word Doc)
The Civic Enterprise is a visual representation, from the National Academy on an Aging Society, of a growing network of organizations that are committed to civic engagement for older adults.
Faculty/Student Opportunities
New CSWE Gero-Ed Center Funding Opportunity Announced Exclusively for BSW Programs
Watch your e-mail for the BEL Program RFP to be released in early 2008.
Cycle 2 CDI Program – Funding Opportunity
Apply for the Cycle 2 CDI Program – and join us at the BPD Annual Meeting for special information sessions.
2007 Gero-Ed Track – A Huge Success
Thanks to all who participated in the 2007 Gero-Ed Track.
Anita Rosen Award Recognizes the Work of Students at APM
Christopher E. Bargeron and Nancy Giunta are the 2007 recipients of the Anita Rosen Student Poster Award.
Civic Engagement and Aging: Asserting Social Work’s Public Purpose
By Jim Hinterlong
Social work has a rich tradition of providing leadership in periods of historical societal change. Population aging now presents a compelling opportunity for our profession to shape public priorities and support private choices. As policy makers, scholars, and community leaders seek innovative responses to an expanding older population, social work should ensure that a broader view of aging takes root: a view that protects the services required by frail older adults and their families yet explicitly recognizes the real and potential contributions of older adults to our families, communities, and society. This latter complementary vision is captured by work on late life productive engagement (e.g. Morrow-Howell, Hinterlong, & Sherraden, 2001), with “civic engagement” referring to efforts that tap older adults’ passions and experiences specifically to address pressing social needs. Unlike perspectives such as successful aging that suggest “how-to” strategies for aging, civic engagement advocates seek recognition and support for the wide range of voluntary social and political activities older adults (and others) undertake that impact their communities.
Finding ways to present older adults with greater opportunities for involvement makes sense. Declining public commitments to social welfare demand that we reinvigorate civic life and improve community capacity to meet growing human welfare needs. Visionary thinkers like Marc Freedman offer language and program models that coalesce social entrepreneurship and public-private partnerships around promising strategies to engage older adults toward these ends (Freedman, 2007). And the field is growing rapidly. Yet, civic engagement does not include or affect older individuals uniformly (Hinterlong & Williamson, 2006-2007). Marginalized and vulnerable older adults and communities can easily be overlooked as efforts and resources to promote and reward engagement are primarily directed toward individuals with greater human, political, and economic capital. Social work should ensure these opportunities are inclusive, voluntary, and meaningful for all older adults (Hinterlong, Morrow-Howell, & Sherraden, 2001). In short, the ongoing reinvention of aging affords gerontological social workers an opportunity to reassert the profession’s profound public purpose: promoting social justice in the face of significant change.
Since aging is a human rights issue, it is timely that social work is strengthening its gerontological capacity. Efforts to infuse curricula with aging competencies, train gerontological social workers, and stimulate aging research are critical. Yet, the prevalent concern that extended longevity will lead to a lengthened period of dementia, disease, dependency, and disengagement should not unduly influence the scope nor narrow the focus of these initiatives. Social work education should encourage the development of knowledge and skills that enable graduates to work with the large proportion of older adults who are vital, experienced, and seeking ways to be meaningfully engaged. Social workers should understand the importance of civic and productive engagement to the well-being of older persons and the reduction of disparities (Hinterlong, 2006; Hinterlong, Morrow-Howell, & Rozario, 2007). Similarly, older adults are and will increasingly become change agents within families and communities. Social workers need to be prepared to lead organizations that have the capacity to fully engage older individuals as a resource. Finally, evaluating and translating promising practices into new policy initiatives at all levels and within businesses and organizations is also important. The visibility of civic engagement during the 2005 White House Conference on Aging and within the 2006 Older Americans Act reauthorization illustrates this work is gaining traction on a broad scale. Given its recent successes in prioritizing aging, gerontological social work is well-positioned to offer continuing and necessary leadership to this emerging field. The opportunity is unprecedented and a perfect fit for our profession.
Jim Hinterlong, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor in social work at Florida State University and a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Scholar. He is the co-director of the Live Oak Geriatric Practicum Partnership Program, and currently serves as the external evaluator for the Atlantic Philanthropies’ Civic Engagement and Ageing grantmaking in the United States.
References
Butler, R. N. (2007). The seven continents: Preparing for longevity and the triumph of survival. New York: International Longevity Center - USA.
Freedman, M. (2007). Encore: Finding work that matters in the second half of life. New York: PublicAffairs.
Hinterlong, J. (2006). Racial disparities in health among older adults: Examining the role of productive engagement. Health & Social Work, 31(4), 275-288.
Hinterlong, J., Morrow-Howell, N., & Rozario, P. (2007). Productive engagement and late life physical and mental health: Findings from a nationally-representative panel study. Research on Aging, 29(4), 348-370.
Hinterlong, J., Morrow-Howell, N., & Sherraden, M. (2001). Productive aging: Principles and perspectives. In N. Morrow-Howell, J. Hinterlong & M. Sherraden (Eds.), Productive aging: Concepts and Controversies (pp. 4-17). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hinterlong, J., & Williamson, A. (2006-2007). The effects of civic engagement of current and future cohorts of older adults. Generations, XXX(4), 10-18.
Morrow-Howell, N., Hinterlong, J., & Sherraden, M. (Eds.). (2001). Productive aging: Concepts and challenges. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Getting Older, Staying Busy: Civic Engagement and Productive Aging
By Martha Holstein
The media and scholarly texts remind us that the life course has been radically disrupted, that we are healthier in old age than ever before, and that we are eager to be productively engaged as long as we are able to do so, indeed, that we are obligated to keep on contributing (Bass et al., 2003; Morrow-Howell et al., 2001) Civic engagement and productive aging fit well within these current social and cultural parameters, which insist that baby boomers will transform old age. Popular phrases, such as we are only as old as we feel and 60 is the new 40, however, hide important complexities, and it is those complexities that make these cheerful scenarios problematic (see Holstein, 2006; Holstein & Minkler. 2003). If advocates of engagement and productivity sought only to open opportunities to volunteer - like the decades old RSVP program - or sought to remove barriers to employment for older workers who needed and/or wanted to work, then my problems would evaporate. But that is not the whole story. The story line is more complicated. Civic engagement has been described as a movement comparable to the civil rights movement and a new expectation—it is a duty for older people to keep contributing while they can (Reilly, 2006). This new obligation, based on good health and early retirement, can transform communities, thus relieving the pressure on public dollars (Freedman, 1999; Morrow-Howell, 2000; Harvard School of Public Health/MetLife, 2004).
Productive aging or, as some prefer, a “productive aging society” is both descriptive and proscriptive. Data on older people’s contributions to society “proves” that they are not “greedy geezers” draining society of resources but adding to it through employment, family caregiving, and volunteering. But here too, there is a proscriptive element—continued work is necessary for the well-being of society. A delayed retirement rather than an early or “normal” retirement is the goal. The operative word in the discourse around civic engagement and productive aging is choice, despite the strong elements of expectation and necessity, which are present in these discourses.
My warnings emerge from these mixed meanings. Which meanings we find most compelling depend in large part on the lenses we use to examine them. What we see through a lens of privilege is quite different than what we see through a lens of gender and class. A lens of privilege means “not having to notice or think about people who aren’t like you” (Lindemann, 2006). To be civically engaged or productive is a choice primarily for the privileged. There is a vast difference between using one’s life experiences and contacts to start a new housing service in one’s community or returning to work as a white collar consultant versus having to work at a minimum wage job just to make ends meet. Further, for the privileged, work and civic activities are sources of respect and often substantial earnings that also leave time for self-care and nurture and are a source of continued self-esteem. For women and people lower down on the income scale, work was often arduous and not a source of respect, leaving little time or resources for self-care and nurturance. Looking at civic engagement and productivity through their eyes might make it seem a burden rather than a privilege, one more expectation or necessity no different than what they experienced throughout their lives. This observation is not to suggest that many people, who worked very hard but have little in the way of income or assets, do not want to keep on giving. Many do but they ought not to be judged if they want to rest—even if they still have the good health to continue. That’s the difference between opening opportunities and creating new expectations.
The rush to decide what constitutes a good old age in the absence of serious and extended public discussion risks imposing a privileged perspective on everyone else. It means taking for granted that what is good for the privileged—healthy, white, relatively affluent, not disabled--is equally good for those people who do not share those characteristics. An important next step is creating opportunities for public discussion in settings where the risk of “group think,” which cannot see beyond the American myth of independence, is reduced. We need to hear from the poor and the near poor, from women, from people of color, from all those who do not wear the lens of privilege.
Martha Holstein, PhD, co-directs the Center for Long-Term Care Reform at the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group in Chicago. She is a respected speaker on ethical issues, feminist gerontology, and social constructionism, and has written or co-authored several books, including Ethics in Community-Based Elder Care.
References
Bass, S., Caro, F. & Chen, Y-P. eds. 1993. Achieving a productive aging society. Westport, CT: Auburn Press.
Freedman, M. (1999). Primetime: How baby boomers will revolutionize retirement and transform America. New York: Public Affairs.
Friedan, B. 1993. The fountain of age. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Gergen, K. & Gergen, M. 2000. The new aging: Self construction and social values. In Schaie, . & Hendricks, J. (eds.) The evolution of the aging self: The social impact on the aging process, pp.281-306. New York: Springer.
Gilleard, C. & Higgs, P. 2000. Cultures of aging: Self, aging and the body. New York: Prentice Hall.
Holstein, M. 2006. A critical reflection on civic engagement. Public policy and agency report. 16 (4), pp. 1, 21-26.
Holstein, M & Minkler, M. (2003). Self, society and the ‘new gerontology.’ The Gerontologist. 43(6), 787-796.
Lindemann, H. 2006. An Invitation to feminist ethics. New York: MGraw Hill
Morrow-Howell, N. (2000). Productive engagement of older adults: Effects on well-being. St. Louis, MO: Washington University.
Morrow-Howell, N., Hinterlong, J. & Sherraden, M. eds. 2001. Productive aging: Concepts and challenges. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Post. S. & Binstock, R. 2004. The fountain of youth: Cultural, scientific, and ethical perspectives on a biomedical goal. New York: Oxford University Press.
Reilly, S. Fall 2006. Transforming aging: The civic engagement of adults 55+. Public policy and aging report. 16 (4): 1, 3-7.
Alert! Volunteering Probably Touches Your Life
By Amy Cohen-Callow
Whether you or an older family member volunteers or you are a professional in the human services, you are likely to cross paths with volunteers, and increasingly with those from the baby boomer cohort. At least 25% of adults 55 and older report that they volunteer (Unites States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 2007) with about one-third of baby-boomers indicating they will volunteer in later life (Pirsuta, 2004). In addition, more than 80% of charities (Hager & Brudney, 2004) and 98% of local government-based agencies include volunteers in their operations (Brudney, 1999). This suggests the importance of preparing human service professionals to work alongside of or to supervise older adult volunteers.
As a former practitioner, a researcher in volunteer management, and a social work faculty member teaching program management, I feel it is particularly important to educate leaders in human service agencies to develop, implement, and oversee volunteer programs. Volunteering provides benefits to both the volunteers themselves and the individuals and organizations affected by their services. Older adults are a particularly valuable group of volunteers with life skills, knowledge, and talents that complement the work of agency staff.
However, these benefits only accrue if we are able to effectively engage older adults in meaningful volunteer work. Baby boomers may seek different types of volunteer opportunities than previous older adult cohorts, requiring agencies to redesign their volunteer positions (Harvard/Met Life, 2004). Specifically, organizations need to consider challenging projects for highly skilled volunteers as well as special projects and short-term assignments for those balancing time demands (Eisner, 2005). Promising practices to guide volunteer program development point to the importance of thinking outside of the box when creating volunteer roles for the young and for the old alike (e.g., Campbell & Ellis, 2004). However, there is limited evidence-based information available for practitioners to use to develop their programs to meet the potential influx of newly retiring volunteers.
It is particularly important that our research on volunteerism provide tools that can be used to improve the volunteer experience. From a management perspective, knowing that an individual is disengaging from a volunteer assignment is valuable, because managers can then implement strategies to counteract this behavior before the volunteer terminates his or her relationship with the organization. This can maximize the benefits accrued from the volunteer-agency relationship which when terminated has the potential to be costly for the volunteer, the agency, and those served .
My dissertation study on volunteers 55 and older measures psychological climate (Brown & Leigh, 1996), which is an individual level measure of volunteers’ perceptions of the work environment. I anticipate that psychological climate will be related to the construct of organizational withdrawal, a measure of the degree of disengagement from one’s volunteer work (Laczo & Hansich, 2000). If there is support for this relationship, then managers may be able to identify when to intervene before a volunteer terminates his or her relationship with the organization. Such research may provide concrete, evidence-based tools that would be of particular use to human service practitioners who find themselves working alongside volunteers.
Amy Cohen-Callow, MSSW, is a doctoral candidate from the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Social Work studying volunteer work force development in the human services. After receiving her MSSW from Columbia University, she worked with the Community Service Society of New York’s Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), overseeing a number of volunteer programs and providing staff development related to managing volunteer programs engaging older adult. Ms. Cohen-Callow is also a Hartford Doctoral Fellow (Cohort VI).
References
Brudney, J.L., & Kellough, J.E. (2000). Volunteers in state government: Involvement, management, and benefits. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29, 111-118.
Brown, S.P. & Leigh, T.W. (1996). A new looked at psychological climate and its relationship to job involvement, effort, and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 353-368.
Campbell, K. N & Ellis, S.J. (1999). The (Help!) I Don’t Have Enough Time Guide to Volunteer Management, Energize Inc.: PA.
Eisner, D. (2005). Engaging baby-boomers in meeting the challenges of the 21 st century: White House Conference on Aging Policy Recommendations. Retrieved November 29, 2007, from www.whcoa.gov/about/policy/meetings/WHCOA-packet_5-17-05.ppt
Hager, M.A., & Brudney, J.L. (2004). Volunteer Management: Practices and Retention of Volunteers. Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Harvard School of Public Health-Met Life Foundation Initiative on Retirement and Civic Engagement (2004). Reinventing Aging: Baby Boomers and Civic Engagement. Cambridge, MA: Center for Health Communication Harvard School of Public Health and MetLife Foundation. Report retrieved June 2005 from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/chc/reinventingaging/Report.pdf
Laczo, R.M., & Hanisch, K.A. (2000). An examination of behavioral families of organizational withdrawal in volunteer workers and paid employees. Human Resource Management Review, 9, 453-477.
Prisuta, R. (2004). Enhancing volunteerism among aging boomers. In Reinventing Aging: Baby Boomers and Civic Engagement. Boston, MA: Harvard School of Public Healht, Center for Health Communication.
United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistic ( January 10, 2007). Volunteering in the United States, 2006. Retrieved from the Website: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm on December, 2007.
New CSWE Gero-Ed Center Funding Opportunity Announced Exclusively for BSW Programs
Up to 40 BSW programs will be funded in two cycles (approximately 20 programs per cycle) to develop innovative experiential student learning activities through the new BSW Experiential Learning (BEL) Program. Examples of experiential learning include:
- Conducting oral histories with elders;
- Practicing interviewing and observation skills with older residents of a housing complex;
- Developing a community outreach or marketing plan for an adult daycare center;
- Completing a community needs assessment for a local naturally occurring retirement community (NORC); and
- Setting up and participating in intergenerational programming.
By involving students in direct interaction with older adults through experiential learning activities, the BEL Program is intended to recruit undergraduate students early in their academic careers to gerontological social work field placements, MSW education in gerontological social work, and careers working with elders and their families.
Watch your email and check the Gero-Ed Center Web site frequently for the release of this RFP early in 2008. A BEL Program informational session will be held at the annual meeting of BPD in March 2008. For more information about the BEL Program, please visit the Gero-Ed Center Web site.
Cycle 2 CDI Program – Funding Opportunity
The CSWE Gero-Ed Center encourages social work programs to apply for a new, three-year Cycle 2 Curriculum Development Institute (CDI) Program, July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2011. Applications are welcome from CSWE-accredited BSW, MSW, and combined BSW/MSW programs that have not already participated in the Cycle 1 CDI Program (2004-2007) or the Geriatric Enrichment Program (GeroRich, 2001-2004). The application deadline is April 15, 2008.
If you are attending the 2008 BPD Annual Meeting, please join us at our Hartford Funding Opportunities Information Sessions to learn more about the Cycle 2 CDI Program and our other new funding initiatives. We will also be available for individual and group consultation to answer specific questions about the Cycle 2 CDI RFP. Check your tote bag for a flyer indicating date, time and location of these sessions.
Cycle 2 CDI Program highlights:
- Gain strategies to prepare social work graduates with the competencies to meet the workforce needs of our aging society
- Learn to implement, evaluate, and sustain gerontological competencies within foundation curriculum and program structure
- Receive support from a CDI Mentor, who is a social work faculty member with expertise in gerontology and planned curricular change
- Network with and learn from faculty participants nationwide at three, annual pre-APM CDI Workshops
Funded programs will receive $2,500 each of the first two years for programmatic implementation support, and up to $700 CDI Workshop travel reimbursement per participating faculty member all three years. For additional program and application details, review the Request for Proposals (RFP) and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), available on the CDI Program web page, www.gero-edcenter.org/CDI.
We hope that you will apply and become part of the growing national movement to increase gerontological foundation competencies to ensure that all graduates are prepared to work with older adults and their families.
2007 Gero-Ed Track – A Huge Success
The CSWE Annual Program Meeting (APM), Gero-Ed Track was held in San Francisco, CA from October 27-30, 2007. Dr. Carmen Morano served as track Chair and Gero-Ed Center staff member Ashley Brooks-Danso as track Co-Chair.
The Gero-Ed Track was pleased to welcome 150 presenters from 80 social work education programs, 13 community organizations and representing three countries. Sessions included paper, poster, student poster, electronic poster, and panel presentations; curriculum and administrative and skills workshops; and the Film Festival.
Highlights included:
- The Kick-Off featuring keynote speech and book signing by Marc Freedman, CEO of Civic Ventures whose keynote address, "Encore: How We Can Make the Most of the Aging Opportunity?" was received by over 75 attendees.
- The fifth annual Gero-Ed Center/AGE-SW Joint Event and Reception which featured for the first time a hot topic panel, "Civic Engagement: What Does It Mean for Social Work?". Panelists included Drs. Nancy Morrow-Howell, James Hinterlong and Carmen Morano. Over 65 conference participants attended the event, which was followed by a business meeting of AGE-SW and the announcement of the Anita Rosen Gerontology Awards for Outstanding Student Poster (see Rosen Award article in this issue of Aging Times).
- CSWE’s Career Center sponsored a special session for gero doctoral students, Finding a Job: In the Field of Gerontology. The session featured panelists, Drs. Harriet Cohen, Colleen Galambos, Nancy Kropf, and Colleen Reed, and was moderated by Dr. Sherry Cummings. It aimed to demystify the hiring process for students searching for faculty positions, particularly in gerontological social work. The session featured a light breakfast sponsored by Dr. Anita Rosen and was well attended by nearly 20 students .
he CSWE Gero-Ed Center thanks all of you who participated in the Gero-Ed Track events. Initial feedback suggests that the Gero-Ed Track was extremely successful. For a recap of the entire CSWE Annual Program Meeting, please visit the APM Recap Page.
Anita Rosen Award Recognizes the Work of Students at APM
The Gero-Ed Center congratulates Christopher E. Bargeron, College of St. Catherine and University of St. Thomas, and Nancy Giunta, University of California at Berkeley, on winning the 2007 Anita Rosen Gerontology Awards for Outstanding Student Poster at the 2007 CSWE APM Gero-Ed Track. The two students were presented with the award and prize money at the 4 th Annual Gero-Ed Center/AGE-SW Joint Event.
With his winning poster Aging Well: Narratives of GLBT Seniors, former MSW student Christopher Bargeron highlighted his research on theories of successful aging and GLBT elders. Nancy Giunta’s poster Implementing the National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP): An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study, which won the PhD student award, examined the factors contributing to the successful implementation by states of this federal caregiver support program.
The Rosen Awards are made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Anita Rosen, reflecting her career-long commitment to gerontological social work and advancing the inclusion of gerontology competencies for all social work students. More information on this year’s winners and on the Anita Rosen Awards is available on our Web site.