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April 2007Vol. 8, No. 3Course Content on Working With Kinship Caregivers

A method for infusing content on grandparents and other kinship caregivers into existing undergraduate social work courses has been developed to increase the competencies of students and improve the quality of services to older adults and their families. The author selected four social work foundation courses, reviewed the course descriptions and learning outcomes, and offered recommendations for themes and assignments that could be incorporated into the coursework to improve the students' knowledge of aging issues and experience working with grandparents raising grandchildren.

The full article, "Preparing Social Work Students to Work With Grandparents in Kinship Care: An Approach to Infusion of Content Materials into Selected Core Social Work Courses," by Patricia Johnson-Dalzine, was published in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work, Volume 48(3/4) and can be purchased online:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17210540

The method was developed for a grantee of the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) GeroRich Project, which awarded grants to B.S.W. and M.S.W. programs to fill the void in gerontological social work content. Learn more about the project on the CSWE Gero-Ed Center website:

http://www.cswe.org/CentersInitiatives/GeroEdCenter.aspx

This website also carries teaching modules on the topic of grandparents caring for grandchildren:

http://www.cswe.org/CentersInitiatives/GeroEdCenter/Programs/MAC/GIG/Arlington/37752.aspx