{"id":9465,"date":"2010-02-02T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=9465"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:43:04","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:43:04","slug":"promoting-healthy-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/02\/promoting-healthy-aging\/","title":{"rendered":"Promoting Healthy Aging"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Karen<\/a>
Karen Bullock, associate professor of social work, meets with residents at Mary Mahoney Village in Hartford. Photo by Peter Morenus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An internship program at UConn\u2019s School of Social Work<\/a> is making the world a little brighter \u2013 and healthier \u2013 for a number of Hartford\u2019s senior citizens, while also providing future social workers with front-line experience dealing with a needy population.<\/p>\n

The Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education, a partnership of the Institute of Living<\/a>, Hartford Hospital, and the School of Social Work, brings students working toward a master\u2019s degree in social work into the halls, apartments, and community rooms of seven Hartford-based senior housing complexes. The students go door to door, in an effort to discuss the residents\u2019 well being and mental health.<\/p>\n

Minority Outreach<\/strong><\/p>\n

The program is the only one in the nation that specifically targets minority populations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfrican Americans and Latinos are the least likely populations to reach out and seek help, especially with mental health issues such as depression; and culture is a huge factor,\u201d says Karen Bullock, a professor of social work and director of the Hartford Partnership for Aging Education. Of the 20 interns who have trained in the healthy aging program thus far, all are from underrepresented populations and many, including Bullock, speak Spanish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s critical to prepare practitioners who are representative of the racial and ethnic minority groups that make up our older adult population in the City of Hartford,\u201d Bullock says. \u201cAs our older adult population in the United States becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, it becomes increasingly important for schools of social work and service providers to prepare practitioners to meet the needs of these older adults.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

The program, funded by the New York Academy of Medicine, is now in its third year, and has reached more than 950 people.<\/p>\n

Students are teamed with a licensed clinical social worker, an advanced practice registered nurse, and a psychiatrist. They spend as much as an hour with each resident, administering screenings for memory loss and depression, medicine management, and other mental health outreach services. Eugene Hickey, director of social work at the Institute of Living, organized the team of mental health professionals who provide the services of the Healthy Aging Program.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Students<\/a>
Students from the School of Social Work meet with residents at Mary Mahoney Village in Hartford. Students from left are Erika Cruz, Lisa Figueroa, Detra Varner, and Christopher Parker. Photo by Peter Morenus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The students also participate in health education forums in the buildings\u2019 community rooms, distribute brochures that describe depression and other illnesses, and provide information on health and wellness.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t an easy job.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the people are skeptical, they wonder what our hidden agenda is,\u201d says Chris Parker, a first-year MSW student from Hartford. \u201cPeople prey on these folks. They\u2019re a vulnerable population. But when they see that we deliver what we said we would, they\u2019re initially surprised, and then they want us to come back. I\u2019ve never been to a place that didn\u2019t want us back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish we could do more,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey just don\u2019t get a lot of service in these complexes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bullock, also a Hartford resident, says that\u2019s one of the main reasons she was interested in targeting the senior communities, all in the poorest sections of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeniors are so in need of these services,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re so isolated. Many of them report that they rarely get visits from anyone, and they don\u2019t get out. They seldom interact with other people in their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program was initially funded through a $75,000, two-year start-up grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation. During that time, Bullock\u2019s group was charged with developing a model for the local program and attracting continuing funding. That model turned out to be a partnership with Hartford Hospital and the Institute for Living. The continuing funding source turned out to be the North Central Area Agency on Aging<\/a>, which provides annual stipends of $3,000 to each of 10 students.<\/p>\n

Developing Skills<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stipends also allow some students to continue the work during summer.<\/p>\n

Before going into the field, the students must learn a specific skill set, says Bullock. This includes how to problem solve, broker, advocate, and create and maintain professional relationships. They must demonstrate that they\u2019re ready, and are put through a rigorous assessment process, including an evaluation of their interviewing skills and ability to engage and communicate with residents of diverse cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne reason this program is unique is because in most mental health programs people come to your office. You have some preliminary data and know a little bit about what\u2019s happening with each person before you actually see them in your office,\u201d Bullock says. \u201cIn this outreach program the students essentially make cold calls. We knock on doors. They have to negotiate, use interpersonal skills to gain rapport, and maintain professional boundaries, which precedes the interviewing. Then they have to probe in order to make good assessments, and when necessary, they also make referrals. Each student has to be knowledgeable about available services in the community so that they know where to refer people.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also learn about the power of collective effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery other week FoodShare comes out, and this is an ideal time for the outreach team to be in the community,\u201d Bullock says. \u201cA lot of the seniors will come out because it\u2019s a chance for them to get bread, vegetables, and other basics. We can talk with them about their mood and memory as they wait to collect their groceries. We have also helped to distribute the food, when helping hands were needed. It\u2019s a great opportunity for our students to have contact with a larger group of seniors, and it lets the residents know we\u2019re not just there to collect data \u2013 we\u2019re there to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, says Bullock, the training will provide an excellent base for the students who are planning to work with older adults once they graduate. And it\u2019s a big help to Hartford\u2019s aging minority population.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we prepare graduate social work students to be competent practitioners, we\u2019re chipping away at the issues that can become barriers to mental health access,\u201d Bullock says. \u201cWe have a lot of work to do, but we\u2019re chipping away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Karen Bullock heads a group of interns offering health education to seniors in Hartford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[37],"class_list":["post-9465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 11:29:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9465"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37593,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465\/revisions\/37593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9465"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=9465"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}