FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, September 25, 2008
GRANT WILL PREPARE BETHANY SOCIAL WORKERS FOR CHANGING POPULATION
LINDSBORG, Kan.—By 2020, one in six Americans will be age 65 or older. That’s according to the Council on Social Work Education Gero-Ed Center and the Hartford Geriatric Social Work Initiative, which recently awarded the Bethany College Social Work Department a $5,000 grant to help prepare social work students to work with older adults and their families. The grant funds will be matched by Bethany College.
The three-year grant, which will help infuse gerontological content into the program’s curriculum, comes during the Bethany Social Work Department’s 35th anniversary year.
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| Senior social work student Kelsey Cavit. |
Senior social work student Kelsey Cavit, Lyons, Kan., wrote the grant proposal. Cavit will do a practicum this spring in geriatric social work.
“I want to go into gerontology. I won’t get it directly in class, but by research, finding materials, and experience, I’m getting it as I go,” she said.
The absence of gerontological curriculum is exactly what the grant funds will address. Over the next two years, the social work program will add assignments, research and hands-on exercises about working with an aging population to its classes, using grant money to purchase supplies. The grant also will provide classes, teleconferences and travel funds to stimulate learning and collaboration. In October, Cavit will travel with Bethany social work professors David Norlin and Margaret Presley to a Curriculum Development Institute in Philadelphia.
“The next generation of social work students at Bethany will benefit from the new curriculum,” said Norlin.
“Studies show that early exposure to [gerontological] content often piques interest in students,” said Presley. “It’s things that you don’t think about as a 20-year-old.” For example, labactivities with devices that temporarily hinder a student’s senses – including hearing, eyesight, or dexterity – can provide an idea of how an elderly person functions in the world, and can stimulate empathy. In this lab setting, other students would then play the social worker, and learn how to communicate and intervene.
In addition to “an understanding of the developmental aspects of aging,” students also need knowledge of the policy and resources that impact the community of older Americans, said Presley. “The Older Americans Act, Medicare, Medicaid…there are complex public health issues.”
Bethany’s program will continue to prepare undergraduate social workers to be generalists. The infusion of new curriculum will strengthen this mission, so graduates “will have the skills to work with any population,” said Presley.
Cavit consulted the Salina Area Agency on Aging and McPherson County Council on Aging for information that helped her write the grant proposal, which she completed as part of a directed independent study course at Bethany last January.
She has been interested in geriatric social work since her sophomore year, when she completed an Experience-Based Education course internship at Bethany Home in Lindsborg. “I really liked getting into the field and helping,” she said. “I liked interacting with older people in a community-based setting.”
The Bethany College Department of Social Work, established in 1973, has been accredited by the Council on Social Work Education since 1974. With more than 200 graduates, the program has a strong reputation in central Kansas and beyond. In the last five years, 97 percent of its graduates have jobs or are attending graduate school within the first six months after graduation.
According to its Web site, the Council on Social Work Education Gero-Ed Center (National Center for Gerontological Social Work Education) has been funded since 2004 by the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York City. Its goal is to "gerontologize" accredited social work programs in America, “embedding gerontological competencies into the foundation curriculum and the overall organizational structure of social work programs.”
Bethany College, established by Swedish Lutheran immigrants in 1881, is a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The mission of Bethany College is to nurture and challenge individuals in their search for truth and meaning as they lead lives of faith, learning and service. Bethany College is on the Web at www.bethanylb.edu.
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