Gerontological social work's pivotal role in the COVID-19 pandemic: A response from AGESW leadership

This reprinted chapter originally appeared in Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 2020, 63[6-7], 553-558. (The following of the original article appeared in record 2021-00510-003.) In these unprecedented times, Association of Gerontological Education in Social Work (AGESW) members have been responsive to the population we serve. AGESW provides leadership in the areas of gerontological social work education, research, and policy, while fostering cooperation, collegiality, and an exchange of ideas among social work educators, researchers, and students committed to or interested in gerontology. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, AGESW as an organization has established programming to meet the needs of its members, such as virtual town halls and webinars on nursing home social work and COVID-19 and addressing loneliness and social isolation among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. AGESW is also providing virtual mentoring space for doctoral students with a focus on gerontology to support their academic work during these challenging times, including a recent webinar on how to publish within the Journal of Gerontological Social Work, available on AGESW's website. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Older Workers in the Time of COVID-19: The Senior Community Service Employment Program and Implications for Social Work.

It has long been the goal of many gerontological social work scholars to increase the ability and opportunity for people to be engaged in paid and unpaid work throughout the life course. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic is revealing and exacerbating the financial insecurity of many older adults. In this paper, we review information related to older workers and how they might be affected by this pandemic and its aftermath, paying particular attention to the most socioeconomically and physically vulnerable older workers. We also offer first-hand experiences from our careers working with and conducting scholarship on older workers, paying particular attention to recent actions by many in the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) network to provide paid sick leave to its low-income, older adult participants. We conclude with implications for social work scholarship and teaching, noting the uptick in technology use among older adults and the disparities that remain, as well as teaching that integrates discussions on the lifelong and cumulative effects of inequalities and marginalization and the need for additional researcher, student, and community collaborations.