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Hartford Doctoral Fellows Program
in Geriatric Social Work
Funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation of New York
City
Administered by The Gerontological Society of America
James Lubben, DSW, MPH, Principal Investigator
For information about the Pre-Dissertation Award Program, a component of the Hartford Doctoral Fellows Program, Click Here.
Doctoral
Fellows Program
About the Program:
It is widely recognized that social workers play a critical role in supporting the well being of older persons. Unfortunately, it is also well documented that there is a critical shortage of properly trained social worker practitioners and the faculty needed to train them. The dearth of properly trained social workers for an aging society cannot be solved unless the current shortage of geriatric social work doctoral students can be overcome. Today's doctoral students in social work are tomorrow's social work faculty who will train the next generation of social work practitioners and will conduct research to establish the empirical basis for defining best practice. This proposal offers a remedy for recruiting, sustaining, and training a cadre of talented doctoral students in geriatric social work through the establishment of a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Doctoral Fellowship Program. It will overcome five major obstacles that presently impede doctoral students in geriatric social work:
- Limited financial support
- Limited number of faculty mentors trained in geriatrics
- Limited teacher training and career guidance
- Limited peer support and learning
- Limited status of geriatric social work as a field of study and practice
The major program components of the proposal are:
- Doctoral Dissertation Grants
- Supplemental academic career guidance
- Professional Development
- Cohort building and network development
Programmatic outcomes include:
- Recruit a cadre of outstanding doctoral students into geriatric social work.
- Enhance the caliber of scholarship in aging by the Fellows.
- Enhance the teaching and academic career skills of Fellows.
- Facilitate faculty appointment for Fellows in accredited social work programs.
- Increase desirability of geriatric social work for practice, teaching and research.
- Develop new knowledge of ways to improve the lives of older persons and their families.
- Develop a network of Fellows and Scholars who will continue their network development beyond the scope of the proposed program in order to improve and expand the field of geriatric social work.
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