Social work Grand Challenges event focuses on supporting older adults facing social isolation

Tabitha Moses

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Social Welfare’s Center for Community Engagement & Collaboration (CCEC) will host an interactive panel on supporting older adults through social isolation with intergenerational alliances.

The event, which highlights alumni of the Sigler Family Aging Scholars Program, will take place Feb. 27 and include professionals whose careers are reshaping the future of aging. After the panel presentation, participants will discuss how everyone can contribute to eradicating social isolation.

The CCEC Grand Challenges for Social Work event – “Reshaping the Future of Aging with Intergenerational Alliances” – will take place on Zoom from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Sign up for the Zoom here.

Speakers include:

  • Lindsay Huddleston, eligibility specialist with Johnson County Area Agency on Aging.
  • Dan Goodman, executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care.
  • Kelly Loeb, community engagement manager at the KU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
  • Kristin Nichols, a multidisciplinary practitioner working as a social worker at KU Outpatient Neurology.
  • Eric Sigler, who helped create the Sigler Family Aging Fellows and currently works as a grief specialist with KC Hospice.

“One of the Grand Challenges for Social Work is to eradicate social isolation, which has adverse effects on health and well-being. Older adults are among those most at risk of social isolation, yet aging services have workforce issues that constrain their reach,” said Melinda Lewis, director of the school’s Center for Community Engagement & Collaboration. 

“The school’s Sigler Family Aging Scholars Program is designed to encourage social work practice in aging and bring more people into the rewarding work to meet this Grand Challenge,” Lewis said.

The Grand Challenges for Social Work is an initiative within the social work profession to champion social progress around a series of grand challenges that the profession works to affect. 

Social workers who register for the event can receive one free continuing education credit.