ORONO – Helen Miltiades, a professor in the department of social work and gerontology at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, is working at the University of Maine for several weeks as the university’s first BAC/Toyota Visiting Geriatric Scholar.

Her work at UMaine is funded by a grant from Toyota and Brewer Automotive Components. Through Toyota’s Community Connection Program, it provided $20,000 to enable UMaine to bring a series of nationally recognized experts on aging issues to UMaine.

“It is very appropriate that our first visiting scholar in this program is Helen Miltiades, who brings such an impressive record of accomplishment in long-term care, community services and health care,” said UMaine professor Lenard Kaye, the director of UMaine’s Center on Aging.

“Her research on rural services for older adults in western Pennsylvania and the training of students for careers in service to older persons lends itself beautifully to addressing the challenges facing an aging Maine. I look forward to her contributions to the Center on Aging’s efforts during he next several weeks,” he said.

Miltiades, who arrived at UMaine in early June and plans to stay until mid-August, is focusing her efforts on three projects.

First, she is conducting a study of parish nurse programs and their role in delivering medical services to older adults.

Through these programs, which are more common in the western United States, nurses go into the community on their own time, either as volunteers or with limited support from organizations like churches and hospitals, to provide medical care. Miltiades is comparing such programs in Maine to those in Pennsylvania, where she lives.

A second project involved delivering a July 18 community workshop on grandparents raising grandchildren for health care providers, organized by the UMaine school of social work and the Center on Aging.

Miltiades and Kaye also are preparing a special overview article for Maine Policy Review analyzing the state of aging in Maine. The article will look at issues such as what it is like to be an older person in Maine, what services are needed to support older adults and what changes in family structure are likely to occur as a result of the aging of Maine’s population. It will be part of a special issue in the journal devoted to aging and will be published in the fall.

“The issues that I am exploring while working on these projects are at the intersection of my interests and the center’s role in exploring issues related to aging in Maine,” Miltiades. “This is an exciting environment in which to work and I am really enjoying summer in Maine.”

Miltiades will begin her third year at Shippensburg in the fall. She holds a doctorate degree in gerontology from the University of Massachusetts.