"My favorite part of the PROGRESS program is the students and the good that they will do in their careers," says Prof. Colleen Reed. "I would be thrilled to have any of our graduates provide services to my own relatives."
Prof. Reed is Principal Investigator of the program grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation. The program offers concentration-year MSW students unique rotational field internships that allow them to experience multiple settings serving older adults.
A positive view of aging
Reed traces her interest in gerontology to the positive interactions she had with older adults when she was a child. On their way home from school, she and her brother would often stop at the hospital where their father was the administrator, and they spent hours playing with the residents of the hospital's nursing home. Reed fondly recalls an older man named Bud who had experienced a traumatic brain injury. Bud frequently gave her and her brother rides in his wheelchair.
"I'm sure that was breaking every rule in the book," she laughs, but the experience gave her a positive view of aging and laid the groundwork for what has become her focus on empowerment and a strengths perspective.
"Our goal in working with older adults should be to walk next to them in their journey toward whatever goals they identify for themselves," she says, "helping them use existing strengths, uncover and mobilize latent resources, and access new and different ones as they are needed."
