Working with the elderly: a one-year internship training program combining practice and theory.

The Golden Age Association, a 6,000-member senior center, provides educational, recreational, social, cultural, and physical activities to well, aged people. In 1983, a training program was developed to enable the center to offer new services and programs to a growing senior population during a time of budgetary restrictions. The importance of maintaining and increasing the quality of life of seniors was paramount. A program was designed to recruit and train intern/staff assistants for a practical and theoretical one-year course. They received hands-on experience in the center and participated in an ongoing gerontology course. The center's goals were to provide high-caliber workers and generate a group of skilled people to work with seniors in the center and elsewhere in the community. This article focuses on recruitment, training, job assignment, and the evaluation process. The plausibility of this type of program is explored using a nontraditional adult education model and the "teachable moment" as well as staff-intern-volunteer relationships. This program is an example of what can be done to provide service and simultaneously train future gerontology workers.