ORONO – Issues facing today’s aging baby boomers are more diverse than those of their generational predecessors, and the UMaine Center on Aging and the School of Social Work have received a three-year, $75,000 grant to prepare new social workers to address more of those issues.

The grant from the John Hartford Foundation in New York, under the New York Academy of Medicine’s Practicum Partnership Program, will allow UMaine to increase significantly the range of practical or clinical experiences for a select number of graduate students in the social work program.

The new practicum opportunities, said Len Kaye, director of the Center on Aging and co-director of the new Practicum Partnership Program, will allow students who will work with older adults to “hit the ground running” as they enter the workforce as certified social workers.

“This new funding will allow us to significantly expand the range of front line community programs that UMaine’s graduate social work students will be exposed to during the course of their professional education,” Kaye said.

Traditionally, students studying for master’s degrees in social work spend about a third of their time working in the field with various agencies in Maine, applying what they’ve learned in class to work experiences in the field, working under the supervision of agency professionals. Students typically are assigned to one agency for a nine-month practicum.

Three graduate students this fall and four students in each of the next two years will be assigned to specific agencies for concentrated clinical work two days a week during their nine-month internship.

They will spend the third day rotating among as many as 10 social service agencies that, in this case, work specifically with older people. The rotation exposes the students to more issues affecting the care of elders, ranging from legal, mental health, planning, advocacy, wellness and health promotion.

“This will result in a new generation of students who are extremely well-prepared to deal with the challenges facing Maine’s elders,” Kaye said. “The more our students know, the better older Mainers will be served. Students, armed with an expanded range of professional skills, will be exceedingly well-prepared to deliver high quality social work services and we hope they will spend their careers right here in the communities in which they are so badly needed.”

The grant was one of only 10 awarded throughout the country to universities with well-established reputations in social work education.

Nancy Kelly, the School of Social Work’s field coordinator and program co-director with Kaye, will oversee student placements. She said that the selection of the UMaine School of Social Work, along with schools of social work at Fordham, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Utah, St. Louis, Louisville, Missouri and Washington universities, Fordham University, and Virginia Commonwealth puts UMaine in excellent standing with some of the nation’s best programs.

“It’s certainly a very prestigious opportunity we’re being given here,” she said.

Marjie Harris, clinical associate at the Counseling Center at UMaine and Practicum Partnership Program coordinator under the grant, noted that as many as 10 social service agencies have signed on to accept UMaine students for practical clinical experiences – something that speaks to the trust and respect community agencies have for the UMaine social work program.

Geriatric social work is an understaffed field in need of many more social workers than are being graduated nationally. The extra training will give the UMaine graduates an advantage in the job market.

“Clearly, this will put them beyond the traditional starting point when it comes to a career in geriatric practice,” Kaye said.

That’s important, added Harris, because today’s elders have substantially different values and needs from their generational predecessors who grew up during the Great Depression. As the baby boom generation approaches retirement age, this new population is healthier, more active and more inquiring than many in older age groups.

Geriatric care, said Leah Ruffin, senior research associate at the Center on Aging, “is not just about the sick elderly. It also is about aging gracefully with changing needs.”

Students in the new program must apply for the limited number of practicum placements created by the grant. They will spend more time working in clinical situations and will be paid a stipend for the extra effort.

Students not part of the new expanded practicum will maintain their on-the-job learning under existing requirements, but they will benefit from the experiences of the students in the expanded practicum partnership through seminar discussions and workshops that include representatives from the cooperating social work agencies in the community.