NEW HUB FOR AGING COLLABORATION

ast fall, Rutgers School of Social Work launched the Hub for Aging Collaboration (“the Hub”), the School’s newest nexus for research, education, and engagement. Led by Professor Emily Greenfield, the Hub amplifies synergies across a growing network of faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community partners committed to aging-focused activities consistent with social work values. The Hub will build upon the School of Social Work’s nationally and internationally recognized leadership in aging, especially in the areas of age- and dementia-friendly communities, supportive service programs, other community-based social innovations, and gero-curricular infusion.

The Hub’s overarching goal is to advance excellence in collaborative research, teaching, and engagement to improve social contexts for healthy and equitable aging. It builds the School’s programmatic strengths in aging, including multiple grant-funded research projects and the MSW Aging and Health Certificate program.

As an example, last fall, a team of faculty, staff, and students worked in partnership with private philanthropy and a statewide nonprofit to host the inaugural New Jersey Age-Friendly Virtual Fair. This first-of-its kind event was conceptualized from their multi-year, engaged program of research with local, county, and state age-friendly efforts in New Jersey. The fair was designed to showcase work being done to make the state a better place to age well across sectors and at different systems levels. It was attended by over 260 service providers, government officials, community leaders, retirees, educators, students, and more.

The Hub is poised to continue to work strategically across disciplines and sectors to make systems, environments, and social institutions more responsive to increasingly long and disparate lives.

The Hub is supported, in part, through a grant from The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, a long-time partner of the SSW’s work on aging. Core faculty members include Drs. Emily Greenfield, Lauren Snedeker, Ayse Akincigil, Patricia Findley, Karen Zurlo, and Ryon Cobb, with additional thanks to Althea Pestine-Stevens (Research Project Coordinator) and Natalie Pope (Graduate Assistant).

Visit socialwork.rutgers.edu/aging to learn more, and email agingcollab@ssw.rutgers.edu to be added to the Hub’s mailing list. n