National Center for Gerontological Social Work Education

Grant Summary

With Foundation support, the Council on Social Work Education will create a National Center for Gerontolological Social Work Education to: produce regional, multi-year curriculum institutes at 64 schools of social work, workshops for up to 250 faculty on infusing gerontological social work into the curriculum, work with the accreditation board for social work education to stimulate wider adoption of the gerontological competencies in education programs, promote geriatric-related content into social work textbooks and make their National Gerontological Social Work Conference self-sustaining. The National Center will serve as a resource for programs to add meaningful geriatric content to courses at schools of social work and to raise the field's capacity to prepare aging-savvy social workers. Over the past six years, The John A. Hartford Foundation has supported the development of gerontological social work curriculum standards and the creation of a clearinghouse for geriatric teaching tools. Two grants to the Council on Social Work Education have advanced the gero-teaching competence of almost 600 instructors through Faculty Development Institutes and supported the development of geriatric curricula at 67 schools of social work throughout the country.