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

ABSTRACT

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)