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Assist Older Adults
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Creating Synergy Among GSWI Programs

Daniel S. Gardner, PhD, LCSW

Assistant Professor of Social Work
NYU Silver School of Social Work
Hartford Doctoral Fellow 2002-2004
Hartford Faculty Scholar 2006-2008
(Above) Dr. Gardner interviews an older adult for his research on family decision-making around chronic and terminal illness.

“I’m committed to increasing practice-relevant research in geriatric social work,” says Daniel S. Gardner, PhD, LCSW, whose research focuses on studying family decision making when an older adult has a chronic or terminal illness. “Health care providers often do not include families in medical decision making, even though older adults rarely make decisions in a social vacuum,” says Dr. Gardner. “They make significant life and health-related decisions with their families.” Decision making around chronic illness—ranging from decisions about treatment options and location of care to preferences regarding end-of-life care—can be complex and challenging for families.

Dr. Gardner began his scholarly career with over 25 years of clinical and administrative experience in hospital and community-based health care. “In all these settings, without seeking it out, I worked primarily with older adults and their families, and I really enjoyed them,” he says. When he decided to pursue a doctoral degree Dr. Gardner easily gravitated to gerontology.

As a Hartford Doctoral Fellow at Columbia University, Dr. Gardner received funding to collect data for his dissertation on communication, social support, and decision making among older adult couples when one partner has advanced cancer. “The funding was necessary for me to complete my research,” says Dr. Gardner. The network of contacts he had formed during his fellowship, along with the prestige of being a Hartford Doctoral Fellow, gave him an advantage in the academic job market. In 2005 he accepted a position at the New York University Silver School of Social Work.

When Dr. Gardner started at the Silver School, there were no aging courses, no faculty members who identified themselves as gerontologists, and they did not have an aging concentration. “One of my professional goals was to advance aging and transform the curriculum to help train the next generation of geriatric social workers,” says Dr. Gardner, who soon applied for and was accepted as a Hartford Faculty Scholar.

Since 2005 the Silver School of Social Work has recruited three additional gerontologists, four faculty members have received Hartford Faculty Scholar awards, and six doctoral students have become Hartford Doctoral Fellows or Pre-Dissertation Awardees. Dr. Gardner helped to develop three courses specifically on aging, and the school now attracts bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral social work students who want to work with older adults and their families. Dr. Gardner and his colleague Peggy Morton secured a Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education grant to sponsor 12 MSW students in aging-related field placements.

“There’s a real synergy around the Hartford programs,” says Dr. Gardner. “It’s not just about helping one person. When students express an interest in aging, we have resources and contacts across the country to link them with, and the process builds on itself.”

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