Catherine. J. Tompkins

Community-engaged health research (CEnHR) offers unique learning opportunities for undergraduate social work students to simultaneously obtain essential research and collaboration skills, while engaging with communities, gaining professional competencies, and building networks. Qualitative research methods were used to assess community partners’ and students’ needs to ensure that stakeholder perspectives were an integral part of developing the new curriculum in CEnHR at a large, suburban, public university. Questions in focus groups and interviews were designed to elicit specific needs and key structural elements essential to the success of a CEnHR academic program. Although some of the known barriers and concerns were validated (such as concerns about logistics and timing of courses), participants expressed additional, unexpected challenges, such as student desires for recognition of work and the need for students to develop high levels of “soft skills” and emotional intelligence through the program to ensure success.

The StrongerMemory program aims to improve cognitive health in older adults through three daily brain exercises stimulating the prefrontal cortex: reading aloud, writing, and math activities. The brain’s prefrontal cortex governs memory retrieval, decision-making, concentration, planning, insight, and judgment. This paper reports on focus groups conducted to understand participants’ perspectives of the StrongerMemory program and their continuation of the exercises post-study. Thirty older adults, mostly female, white, married, and holding advanced degrees, participated. Rigorous data analysis involving coding, memoing, and constant comparative analysis generated 132 codes leading to the emergence of five themes: motivating , appreciating , taxing , committing , and enhancing . Social work practitioners can gain valuable insights from this study to enhance the creation and implementation of accessible and meaningful brain health interventions for older adults.

Participating in a study abroad program has been reported as having a positive impact on students in areas such as personal growth, intellectual development, and increased employability. It is a great opportunity to train students to become global citizens. Developing a broader perspective and cultural competency is critically important for future social workers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore experiences of students who participated in short study abroad programs offered as a part of the social work curriculum. Focus group interviews with eight students identified two themes: 1) cultural exposure and 2) personal and professional growth. Students reported that they were able to adopt changes, improve their ability to understand and relate to a new culture and population, and learned new perspectives. They also expressed that participating in a study abroad program helped them reflect on themselves and their own background, which are critical components of cultural competence. The study findings indicate that study abroad programs offer a valuable opportunity to enhance skills that are necessary to become a competent social worker.

Introduction: As the world population ages, practitioners use community-engaged interventions to help older adults stay healthy. Engaging in arts programs (e.g., dance or music) reportedly improves physical and mental health, but little research exists examining these effects in community-dwelling older adults. Our purposes were to examine how taking part in 10-week, twice per week community arts programs (dance and music) and control (social conversation) affected physical and mental health in community-dwelling older adults and their perceptions after program participation. Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, 64 older adults over 65 years of age (71.3 ± 4.6 years, 166.9 ± 8.3 cm, 78.1 ± 18.1 kg) took part in community-engaged arts programs: ballroom dance (n = 23), music (ukulele-playing, n = 17), or control (social conversation n = 24), two times per week for 10 weeks. Participants' physical health using the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB; score 0 = worst to 12 = best) and mental health using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA; score = 0 to 30, where less than 26 = normal) were tested three times: 1. before (pre), 2. at the end of 10 weeks (post-1), and 3. 1 month after intervention (post-2). Separate 3 (group) x 3 (time) ANOVAs and adjusted Bonferroni pairwise comparisons as appropriate examined changes across groups and time. Focus group interviews and surveys were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using inductive thematic analyses to examine participants' perceptions. Results: Across all groups, participants had an 87.8% attendance and an 87.5% retention rate. Participants' SPPB performance improved over time (pre = 10.5 ± 1.4, post-1 = 10.7 ± 1.3, post-2 = 11.3 ± 1.0; p < 0.001), but similarly across groups (p = 0.40). Post-hoc analyses revealed that performance improved from pre to post-1 (p = 0.002) and pre to post-2 (p < 0.001). Participants' cognition improved over time (pre = 26.3 ± 2.8, post-1 = 27.3 ± 2.6, post-2 = 27.5 ± 2.5, p < 0.001), and similarly across groups (p = 0.60). Post-hoc analyses revealed that cognition improved from pre- to post-1 (p = 0.002), and pre- to post-2 (p = 0.001). Participants consistently mentioned increased social engagement as the major reason for participation. Conclusions: Overall, taking part in community-engaged arts (dance and music) and social conversation programs positively influenced physical and mental health in older adults. Still, as all groups improved equally, the results may partly be due to participants having normal physical and mental function pre-participation and due to them learning the test over time. These study findings imply that providing fun and free community-engaged programs that empower participants to be more engaged can positively influence physical and mental health and promote successful aging in older adults.

A successful interprofessional faculty development program was transformed into a more clinically focused professional development opportunity for both faculty and clinicians. Discipline-specific geriatric competencies and the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies were aligned to the 4Ms framework. The goal of the resulting program, Creating Interprofessional Readiness for Complex and Aging Adults (CIRCAA), was to advance an age-friendly practice using evidence-based strategies to support wellness and improve health outcomes while also addressing the social determinants of health (SDOH). An interprofessional team employed a multidimensional approach to create age-friendly, person-centered practitioners. In this mixed methods study, questionnaires were disseminated and focus groups were conducted with two cohorts of CIRCAA scholars to determine their ability to incorporate learned evidence-based strategies into their own practice environments. Themes and patterns were identified among transcribed interview recordings. Multiple coders were used to identify themes and patterns and inter-coder reliability was assessed. The findings indicate that participants successfully incorporated age-friendly principles and best practices into their own work environments and escaped the silos of their disciplines through the implementation of their capstone projects. Quantitative data supported qualitative themes and revealed gains in knowledge of critical components of age-friendly healthcare and perceptions of interprofessional collaborative care. These results are discussed within a new conceptual framework for studying the multidimensional complexity of what it means to be age-friendly. Our findings suggest that programs such as CIRCAA have the potential to improve older adults’ health by addressing SDOH, advancing age-friendly and patient-centered care, and promoting an interprofessional model of evidence-based practice.