One Friday afternoon in spring 1999, I got a phone call from Dr. Barbara Berkman. In a welcoming tone she said, “Nancy--congratulations! You’ve been selected for the first cohort of Hartford Geriatric Social Work Scholars.” All of the Hartford Doctoral Fellows and Faculty Scholars know that this message changes your life. As a Fellow or Scholar, you participate in programs that develop your professional network and advance your teaching and research skills. You also become part of a community that has a strong commitment to enhancing the health and well-being of older adults. In addition, as a Fellow or Scholar you become part of the pipeline into social work and aging leadership.

The numerous initiatives of the Geriatric Social Work Initiative (GSWI), established in 1999 by the John A. Hartford Foundation, have been critical to building that pipeline. The 2009 Hartford Foundation Annual Report celebrates the 10th anniversary of the GSWI and the remarkable gains it has made in promoting aging within social work education. Besides the Scholars and Fellows programs, the Gero-Ed curriculum project and the HPPAE field placement program provide schools with resources to include a greater degree of aging content within curricula.

As Director of the School of Social Work at Georgia State University, I am particularly excited about one of Hartford’s newer programs, the Leadership Academy in Aging; it offers deans and directors of social work programs the opportunity to develop strategies to expand their aging programs while building leadership skills. As a result, the Aging Interest Group that is part of the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work (NADD) has gained interest and momentum.

From my perspective, one of the most critical issues we face is how to build the student pipeline into geriatric social work. Research on student interest in gerontology clearly identifies that positive interaction with older adults is an important prerequisite for recruiting students into this area. Unfortunately, exposure to aging content often comes late in students’ educational experience. To build the pipeline, we need to increase educational models that start long before students become social work majors.

As deans and directors, members of our NADD Aging Interest Group can scan the landscape of higher education and develop models that will pull students into aging at earlier points. Ideas include a greater presence in the general education curriculum, such as teaching courses in Freshmen Learning Communities (FLC) and required Gen Ed courses. For example, each fall I volunteer to teach an FLC on Families in Contemporary Society. While this course examines a number of different family forms, intergenerational issues are a prominent theme. Several students have chosen aging topics for their paper assignments, such as grandparents who are raising grandchildren or caring for aging parents.

Recruitment isn’t limited to our university campuses. Partnerships with high schools or two-year colleges could also broaden interest in social work and aging. Service learning projects are great ways to structure these collaborations, and the gerontology literature includes several examples of projects (see Dauenhauer et al., Gutheil et al.) that have demonstrated efficacy in promoting interest in work with older adults.

Those of us who have been in the aging field for several years can remember when we were a small (but mighty) part of the social work community. We have grown substantially during the GSWI’s first decade, yet we know that there is more work to be done, even on our own campuses and in our own communities. I hope we can develop innovative models of student recruitment that will help students consider the career opportunities that are available in aging as they think about where to apply to college or select a major. It’s time for social work education to step out of the “disciplinary safety zone” and jump into the areas where we can work to attract students to our profession--and particularly to geriatric social work.

Other blogs in this series