It Gave Me Somebody Else to Think About Besides Myself: Caring Callers Volunteer Experiences With a Telephone-Based Reassurance Program for Socially Isolated Older Adults.

The Caring Callers Program was developed as a telephone-based intervention utilizing Senior Companion volunteers to reach older adults at greater risk for loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. This pilot program consisted of trained volunteers who provided supportive, weekly calls as well as community resources with their Caring Callers clients. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore the experiences of Senior Companion volunteers in the Caring Callers Program through the lens of productive aging. We completed semi-structured interviews with 18 Caring Callers volunteers. We used Rapid and Rigorous Qualitative Date Analysis (RADaR) which yielded four themes: (1) reciprocity; (2) purposeful use of time; (3) learning new skills; and (4) gaining perspective. Our findings provide insight for gerontological researchers examining volunteering as a productive aging activity and offer strategies for designing peer-led, telephone-based interventions to promote social connectedness in an unprecedented time.

Building the capacity of neighborhoods and the resilience of neighbors to respond to COVID-19: The neighbor to neighbor volunteer corps

This chapter describes the development of the Neighbor to Neighbor Volunteer Corps ("N2N") at a major New York City-based university in March, 2020, during the COVID-19 global pandemic. N2N is a civic engagement program to assist neighbors in university Faculty Housing with basic needs, mental health, and social isolation. The objectives of this chapter are to (a) explicate a conceptual framework within an historical context, along with important guiding values that helped to build the university's capacity to respond to COVID-19;(b) identify at-risk populations among a heterogeneous population, acknowledging the diversity of residents in the neighborhood;(c) discuss programmatic elements of the project, specifically the ways in which the shared trauma of COVID-19 helped build resilience among the neighbors involved in the project;and (d) discuss how this intervention at the community level contributes to the larger knowledge base of macro-, mezzo-, and micro-discussions of productive aging and clinical social work practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Associations between Volunteering and Mental Health during COVID-19 among Chinese Older Adults.

Evidence about the association between volunteering and the mental health of older adults during COVID-19 remains underexplored. This study investigated (1) patterns of volunteering among older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19; (2) associations between volunteering and mental health of older adults during COVID-19; and (3) associations between key psychological resources (e.g., self-efficacy and self-esteem) and volunteering among older adults during COVID-19. This study applied a cross-sectional design with data collected from 128 older adults in June 2020, who were trained as volunteers in a volunteer program that began before COVID-19. The study found that older adults continued to actively contribute to their communities by engaging in volunteering during COVID-19. The specific type of volunteering activities was linked to few depressive and anxiety symptoms. Older adults with increased self-esteem prior to COVID-19 were more likely to participate in volunteering activities related to COVID-19. Our study suggested that encouraging older adults to volunteer during the pandemic is a key pathway to maintain mental health. Social workers are encouraged to engage older adults in volunteerism regularly to offset the risk of depression and anxiety symptoms in times of crisis.

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.