Harriet L. Cohen

Intergenerational service-learning: an innovative teaching strategy to infuse gerontology content into foundation courses.

Summary This article provides an overview of intergenerational service-learning, an experiential pedagogy that involves students in learning outside the traditional classroom while providing a needed service in the community. Examples of intergenerational service-learning projects are presented that have been successfully utilized by the authors. These projects demonstrate the importance of using reflective practice assignments to help students deconstruct and reconstruct images, beliefs and paradigms about older adults. In addition, problems and opportunities in developing service-learning projects in urban and rural settings and with the Hispanic community are described, as well as some of the types of learning that may result from implementing service-learning experiences in various social work foundation courses.

Social Work With Older Adults and Their Families: Changing Practice Paradigms

Given the far-reaching social, economic, and demographic changes in the aging population, the authors argue for a methodological and practice-oriented transformation in future geriatric social work. The authors suggest that if they are to maintain their independence and well-being, a resilience-enhancing social work intervention will be especially effective in fostering the specific survival skills that older adults often already utilize to help them cope with difficult situations. A risk-resilience model sensitive to ethnic difference and practiced at multiple systems levels (e.g., the community) is offered as an advancement of the traditional models of social work practice. In conclusion, the authors emphasize the value of a strengths perspective to address the pressing issues that affect the aging population.

Religion and Spirituality as Defined by Older Adults

ABSTRACT This exploratory qualitative study examined the intrinsic definitions of spirituality and religion across three different religious or ethnic groups of older adults – Jewish, African American Protestants and Caucasian Protestants. The study explores how older adults from these various backgrounds self-identify with the terms religion and spirituality. Because both African-Americans and Jewish older adults are underrepresented in the research on spirituality and religion, their inclusion lends insights to this topic and helps to anchor the findings in a cross-cultural context. Focus groups were employed to understand how these groups characterize their relationship to spirituality and religion. Social work professionals can utilize these findings to work more effectively with the diverse and complex issues of older adults.

The Manifestation and Integration of Embodied Knowing Into Social Work Practice

Traditionally, research in both adult education and social work fields have focused on cognitive ways of knowing. Although both disciplines have acknowledged other ways of knowing, there has been minimal focus on noncognitive ways of knowing, including embodied knowing. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how social workers incorporated embodied knowing into their social work practice. Ten social workers from a variety of settings were interviewed to understand how they learned to trust their bodies as a site of knowing and integrate embodied knowing into their social work practices. Using a feminist theoretical framework, findings indicated that participants embraced and trusted their embodied knowing as a valid source of knowledge. Participants identified internal reactions in social work interactions and described how they processed these somatic sensations to guide their practices. Implications for social work practitioners and social work and adult educators are discussed.

Older Adults Who Overcame Oppression

This article presents the results of a study that examined 24 ethnically diverse older adults’ autobiographical memories of critical life events involving discrimination and oppression. Narrative interviews reveal the impact that such experiences have on individual, family, and societal resilience. The study contributes to the growing body of research literature that allows for a deeper understanding of how a clients particular life story and personal experiences interplay with collective histories. It also discusses how clinicians, including physicians, nurses, and social workers, can benefit from conversations that mutually construct personal narratives that reveal circumstances pertinent to intervention strategies (Cohler & Cole, 1996; Gergen, 1996).

Chapter 14. Older Lesbian and Gay Caregivers

SUMMARY This chapter will explore the experiences of older lesbian and gay men caregivers by examining the socio-historical times in which they have lived, the impact of a lifetime of adverse societal messages about homosexuality, family rejection, and internalized homophobia, as well as their development of resiliency and psychological well-being. Once the contextual issues have been identified, the research on older lesbian and gay caregivers for families of origin and families of choice will be explored.

Holocaust Survivors: Three Waves of Resilience Research

Three waves of resilience research have resulted in resilience-enhancing educational and therapeutic interventions. In the first wave of inquiry, researchers explored the traits and environmental characteristics that enabled people to overcome adversity. In the second wave, researchers investigated the processes related to stress and coping. In the third wave, studies examined how people grow and are transformed following adverse events, often leading to self-actualize, client creativity and spirituality. In this article the authors examined data from a study, “Forgiveness, Resiliency, and Survivorship among Holocaust Survivors” funded by the John Templeton Foundation (Greene, Armour, Hantman, Graham, & Sharabi, 2010). About 65% of the survivors scored on the high side for resilience traits. Of the survivors, 78% engaged in processes considered resilient and felt they were transcendent or had engaged in behaviors that help them grow and change over the years since the Holocaust, including leaving a legacy and contributing to the community.

A Lesbian Older Adult Managing Identity Disclosure: A Case Study

The aim of this study was to explore the experience of an older lesbian in managing the disclosure of her sexual identity. Specifically, the team wanted to better understand the ways she managed her identity in an assisted living facility. Using a qualitative case study methodology, 2 in-depth interviews were conducted. The following 5 themes were identified in the data: keeping her own counsel, maintaining “family” connection, celebrating second chances, living outside the L box, and staying morally centered. Practice and research implications are offered and the case study is used to expand understanding of disclosure management and resiliency theory.

Chapter 15. Dementia Caregivers

SUMMARY Using a strengths-based perspective, the chapter first looks at the positive aspects of dementia caregiving. It then applies the functional age model to the dementia caregiving population. The model allows for a holistic study and assessment of an individual family members biopsychosocial-spiritual functional capacity in conjunction with the family systems adaptive and coping ability. The role of culture of caregiving practices is also explored.

Transforming students' attitudes and anxieties toward death and loss

This study examines the impact of a death and dying course on 39 undergraduate students’ attitudes and anxieties about death. Authors outline key aspects of the curriculum used in the course and discuss how the approach lends itself to a transformative learning experience related to death and loss, preparing students who will face clients with a variety of needs in these areas across practice settings. The majority of students (n = 34) experienced a decrease in death avoidance, fear of death, and overall death anxiety. Students with a history of multiple violent, traumatic, or unexpected deaths (n = 5) did not experience any significant changes but demonstrated increased scores of death anxiety suggesting that they may be in need of greater support while engaging in death education.