Research, macro practice and aging in the social work education curriculum.

This paper presents a model that used a macro emphasis for teaching research using older adults. Faculty developed the teaching model to address three key areas of concern in the education of Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) students for generalist practice: (1) research, (2) macro-level practice, and (3) aging. The paper explores the nature of these concerns and draws upon previous literature to delineate a teaching model designed to strengthen these areas of generalist practice by integrating content on macro-level concerns and aging into the curriculum of a research course.

Status of end of life care in organizations providing services for older people with a developmental disability.

Volunteers of America conducted a national survey of directors of 500 organizations providing services to older people with an intellectual disability in order to establish a baseline for assessing current status of end of life care. The questionnaire contained 56 questions. The return rate was 32% (N = 160).

Evaluation of a group intervention to assist aging parents with permanency planning for an adult offspring with special needs.

More than three-fourths of older adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness live in the community with aging parents, the majority of whom do not complete plans for the residential, financial, and legal future of their offspring. The authors used a true experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of a six-week psychoeducational group intervention with 27 older mothers. Data collected in pre- and posttest telephone interviews were analyzed with repeated measures MANCOVA to test five hypotheses.