The Listening Sessions
To learn about and consider the future training and education needs for workers delivering care and services to older adults in our state, a collaboration was formed in 2006 between the Presidents Circle of the State Society on Aging of New York (SSANY) and the New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA).
One of the unique aspects of this project is this strong collaboration between NYSOFA and SSANY. The partnership enabled the development of:
- A viable approach to collecting information.
- Assurance that both academic and policy aspects of the future workforce to serve an older
adult population were addressed.
- Significant issues about cultural competence that were woven into the Listening Sessions.
- Targeted recommendations for action about how best to proceed with education and training
policies and practices, including certification and credential options for working with an older adult population, as well as data collection, and evaluation.
The collaborative determined that input was needed from across the state and across multiple disciplines about future training and education needs for the state's workforce that currently is - and, in the future, will be - working with older adults. The collaborative produced eight Listening Sessions titled, Working with Older Adults: Charting the Future of Workforce Training and Education that were co-facilitated by faculty members of the SSANY Presidents Circle and NYSOFA and held across the State, representing urban, rural and suburban locations (see Appendix A).
The Listening Sessions used a common set of questions that guided each of the Sessions (see Appendix B). A qualitative content analysis was conducted by the SSANY Presidents Circle-NYSOFA collaborative, in order to identify the major themes emerging from the Listening Sessions and to help rank issues of importance.
Listening Sessions: Goals and Objectives
The two primary goals for the Listening Sessions were to:
- Provide an opportunity for participants to offer input about workforce education and
training issues, including: pre-training; on-the-job training; higher education's role in
preparing the future workforce in disciplines such as social work, nursing, medicine, and the
therapies; certification and credentialing options in various disciplines; and paraprofessional
training issues.
- Increase the level of input into the issues across a wide range of disciplines and locales,
thereby improving the ability of the SSANY Presidents Circle-NYSOFA collaborative to identify
effective and broadly supported strategies about next steps.
The Listening Sessions used a collaborative approach among state government, academia, providers and consumers to make the Listening Sessions a success. Together, SSANY and NYSOFA employed a core set of common questions that framed the discussion in each of the Listening Sessions. The objectives of the Listening Sessions were to:
- Hear from a wide range of stakeholders to identify strategies to best educate and train a
workforce to effectively and compassionately serve the needs of older adults.
- Determine if there are common themes among urban, suburban, and rural communities about
workforce training and education issues.
- Prepare a qualitative content analysis of the Listening Sessions in order to identify the
major themes emerging from the Listening Sessions and to help rank issues of importance.
- Learn about workforce issues related to diversity from a specially designed Listening
Session representing collaboration among Latino, African American, and Asian leaders in aging
service delivery that focused on workforce issues in aging among Latino, African American,
Asian, and other ethnic groups.
- Learn about curriculum issues and suggestions for change that emerged in the Listening
Session discussions.
- Learn about perspectives on state certification of professional geriatric services,
including geriatric care management and gerontological social work.
- Learn about public-private partnerships where different roles are assumed by different
partners with the objective of collaborating on a learning process that culminates in a product
for wide dissemination.
- Learn about successful strategies in ensuring that older people are full partners with
government, professional provider, and academic communities in discussing needed workforce
changes to better serve older people and their families.
- Learn about ideas to inform policy, program, and practice changes that are anticipated
outcomes of this collaborative project in New York State.
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