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The CSWE Gero-Ed Center’s mission is to promote
gerontological competencies
in baccalaureate and
master’s level social work programs nationwide to prepare students
to enhance the
health and well-being of older adults and their families.
Welcome to the CSWE Gero-Ed Center
This CD-ROM
introduces you to the background and rationale for the CSWE Gero-Ed
Center. It provides you with immediate access to Center programs and
projects and a sample of resources developed by CSWE Gero-Ed Center staff
and faculty participants.
We hope that this
CD-ROM will be the catalyst to your own creative and sustainable
gerontological (gero) curricular and programmatic changes. Please click
below to learn more:
·
Overview
·
Programs
and Projects
·
Gero
Social Work Competencies
·
Curricular
and Organizational Change Strategies
·
Teaching
Resources
·
Publications
and Reports
Overview
Rationale
By 2020, one in
six Americans are projected to be age 65 and older, with the most
dramatic growth among those over age 85, elders of color, and women.
These demographic changes, profoundly shaping every aspect of our
society, are the impetus for the Hartford Foundation’s Geriatric Social Work Initiative (GSWI).
Closely related is the growing demand for social
workers with gerontological competencies, as documented in numerous
workforce studies.
Social workers
interact with older adults and their families in nearly all practice
settings—child welfare, health and mental health, schools, domestic
violence, and substance use to name a few—but are typically not formally
prepared to do so. Recognizing this, the CSWE Gero-Ed Center promotes gerontological
competencies at the generalist level for all social work students as well
as specialized gerontological practice behaviors at the advanced level.
The Need for Gero Social Work Competence
Two of the
primary rationales for preparing gerontologically competent social
workers are:
1.
The dramatic demographic and socioeconomic changes in our
society, which are summarized in Selected Facts on Aging.
2.
The gap between the number of social workers with
gerontological competencies and workforce needs, as documented in studies
over the past 30 years and summarized in Workforce Needs.
Disseminating
these documents to your faculty colleagues may predispose them toward
using gerontological competencies, content, and teaching resources in
their courses. These documents, along with our Rationale for Infusion,
also make the case for a planned change approach that embeds gero
practice behaviors and content into class and field at the generalist
practice level.
History
Two prior
Hartford-funded CSWE curricular development projects—Strengthening Aging
and Gerontology Education for Social Work (SAGE-SW) and Geriatric
Enrichment in Social Work Education (GeroRich)—form the background and
context for the CSWE Gero-Ed Center (2004 -2012). Funded since 1998,
these Hartford curricular change initiatives share the goal of embedding
gerontological competencies into curriculum and programmatic structures.
Accomplishments
Since 2004, the CSWE
Gero-Ed Center has had a national impact on the gerontological
preparation of faculty, students, and community partners.
Programs
Social work
faculty members acquire gero knowledge and planned change skills to
infuse practice behaviors, which comprise the gero competencies, into
required generalist courses and programmatic structure. National mentors,
peer collaboration, and annual workshops are highlights of the three-year
CDI Program.
Over a two-year
period, BSW programs create experiential learning opportunities directly
with older adults to recruit undergraduates to gero social work field
placements and careers. Look for examples of innovative experiential
programs, syllabi, and other course materials on our Web site in 2010.
BSW and MSW
programs receive two years of funding to design specialized gero
curricular structures: concentrations, specializations, minors,
certificates or areas of emphasis. Watch for specialized gero teaching
materials developed by 2010-2011.
Projects
The Gero Innovations Grant
and Resource Reviews
are two separate but interrelated projects with the purpose of enhancing
gero competencies in the advanced MSW specialty practice areas of mental
health, substance use, and health by creating evidence-based teaching
materials. Visit the MAC Project portion of the Web site for helpful
resources.
The Gero-Ed
Center’s eLearning series offers aging-related online learning courses to
faculty, field instructors, and doctoral students nationwide. Browse our eLearning
course list and register!
This ongoing
track of the CSWE Annual Program Meeting (APM) features sessions on
issues related to aging and intergenerational social work education,
research, policy, and practice.
Center staff and
faculty consultants work with social work textbook editors and authors to
review existing gero content in texts and design strategies to expand
such content to support students’ attainment of gero competencies.
Center staff
collaborates with admissions and career counseling personnel to recruit
students, especially those from culturally diverse backgrounds, to gero
social work and to promote students’ gero leadership capacity through
resources on the Student Corner of
our Web site.
Licensing Exam Project
Center staff
encourages gero social work practitioners and educators to apply to write
questions for the ASWB licensure exams.
Accreditation and Educational Policy
Center staff measures
the impact of gero curricular infusion on social work accreditation via
ongoing analyses of reaffirmation self-studies and gero questions within
the CSWE Annual Statistics. Additionally, a national workgroup reviewed
and explicitly linked gero practice behaviors with the 2008 EPAS. CSWE
Gero-Ed Center staff participates in the Eldercare Workforce Alliance,
which seeks to implement recommendations from the 2008 Institute of
Medicine Report, Retooling for an Aging America; Building the Health
Care Workforce.
Competencies Overview
The CSWE Gero-Ed
Center—along with other Hartford curricular initiatives—is groundbreaking
in its use of a competency-based approach to curriculum development.
Two sets of gero
social work competencies guide our programmatic initiatives:
Gerontological Social Work
Competencies
CSWE Gero-Ed
Center competency goals are for all social workers to attain a beginning
knowledge level for generalist practice with older adults and their
families and to build toward aging concentration in advanced practice
sequences.
View the Gero-Ed Center Competency Goals.
Competency Scale with the
Life-long Learning Leadership Competencies
This scale measures advanced practice behaviors as
assessed by both the student and his/her field supervisor. Developed by
the Hartford-Partnership Program for Aging Education (HPPAE), it is also
used by the CSWE Gero-Ed Center for evaluating student attainment of
competencies for advanced level practitioners.
View the Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale II with Life-long Leadership Skills.
For more information
about gero competencies, practice behaviors, background on their
development, and our new Advanced
Gero Social Work Practice guide, visit the Competencies page on
our Web site.
The development
and use of a planned change model for curricular and organizational
change distinguishes the CSWE Gero-Ed Center. Learn how to implement,
evaluate, and sustain such gero changes by reviewing documents that
highlight strategies to engage faculty, recruit students, partner with
practicum instructors, and implement gero practice behaviors and
associated content in your curriculum and program structure:
·
The
Process of Bringing About Change in Your Social Work Program
·
Key
Terms and Concepts of the CSWE Gero-Ed Center Planned Change Model
·
Definitions
of Curriculum Change
·
Gerontology
Infusion Guidelines
·
The
Ideal: What a “Gerontologized” Program Looks Like
Lessons
Learned
This CD-ROM
includes only a
sample of the extensive high quality gero infused and
gero specialized curricular and teaching resources
available on our Web site. Most of these were developed “from the ground
up” by faculty participants in Center programs and projects.
Syllabus
This HBSE
syllabus reverses the life cycle by beginning with old age and embeds
aging in its goals and objectives, readings, and assignments, including a
requirement for service learning with an older adult. Other gero-infused syllabi
for each of the generalist content areas are accessible on our Web site.
Gero specialized
syllabi from stand-alone courses or from gero specialized curricular
structures, such as a concentration, are also available on our Web site.
Class Exercise
This sample
exercise, Role Play Vignettes: Self-Determination, Elder Abuse, and
Kinship Care, can be used in practice courses at the generalist
level. Our Web site includes role plays, discussion guides,
and quizzes that can be readily infused into your courses.
Case Study
This model case
book includes a case study, The Sanchez Family, for practice
courses at the generalist level to teach assessment skills related to
family dynamics and multigenerational caregiving with culturally diverse
communities. Our Web site offers a range of case studies.
Teaching Module
This sample
teaching module, developed for use in Research Methods courses,
addresses ethical and measurement issues pertinent to gero research.
Other “user-friendly” modules
on our Web site typically consist of a summary of the key issues for a
particular topic along with recommended readings, class exercises, and
assignments.
Assignment
This sample
assignment, Generalist Practice Communication Skills: Class Trip to a
Senior Center, assists students in developing observation and
communication skills. Our Web site offers other assignments that can
be readily infused into generalist courses or used in gero specialized
courses to measure student attainment of practice behaviors.
Access more teaching resources
similar to these on the Gero-Ed Center Web site.
To learn more
about CSWE Gero-Ed Center programs and its planned curricular and
organizational change model, access our Center publications, including:
Aging Times
Keep current with
Center activities and resources by subscribing to, and visiting the
online archives of, our bimonthly e-newsletter.
Achieving Curricular and Organizational Change
The GeroRich
monograph, Impact of the CSWE Geriatric Enrichment in Social Work
Education Project, summarizes findings and lessons
learned from the CSWE GeroRich Project. This monograph is useful to
faculty, academic administrators, and community partners across a wide
range of programs.
The book, Transforming
Social Work Education: The First Decade of the Hartford Geriatric Social
Work Initiative, edited by Nancy Hooyman and
including chapters written by all the GSWI PIs and three Program
Coordinators, was published by CSWE Press in 2009 and is relevant across
curricular areas.
Infusion of Gerontology Content in 2005 and 2006
Bachelor and Master of Social Work Accreditation Reports: A Content
Analysis
A summary
of a 2006 review of 40 accreditation self-studies to assess the extent of
gerontology-related begins to document the impact of gero curricular
change initiatives. A similar review is scheduled for 2010.
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