Service Initiatives

SCOSA Service activities seek to leverage the major resources that Stockton can offer as a community partner through our faculty expertise and service learning students, and through other student initiatives, clubs, and organizations.  Please click on the Educational Initiatives - Service Learning tab for more information on Service Learning Projects.

SCOSA fully embraces Stockton University's vision as “an environmentally-responsible learning community of engaged citizens embracing a global perspective." Working with students, faculty, and community partners and stakeholders we have organized and presented programs in each of the college’s four strategic themes: Learning, Engagement, Global Perspectives and Sustainability (LEGS). We strive to encourage older adults to age successfully through vital involvements in their communities.

GEROS at Alzheimer's Walk

A Brief Selected List of Aging Resources

AARP: Create The Good
New website offers tools for getting involved in your community. Learn more at www.createthegood.org.

Alzheimer's Association
Questions about Dementia? There is a wealth of information on the web site of the Alzheimer's Association at www.alz.org.

Gray Is Green
Gray is Green is a project of the National Senior Conservation Corps, sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation's most effective environmental action group. Learn more at www.NRDC.org.

National Council on Aging (NCOA)
An organization devoted to improving the lives of older Americans. Find out more at www.ncoa.org.

Other Useful Links:

Arthritis Relief
NPR Radio Program on "People's Pharmacy":  Alleviating Arthritis. 
US CDC Report and Toolkit for health campaign: "Physical Activity: The Arthritis Pain Reliever".

"Make the Call. Don't Miss the Beat!"
This campaign educates women aged 50+ on heart attacks. It states that a woman suffers a heart attack every 90 seconds in the United States. Yet only half would call 9-1-1 if they thought they were having a heart attack, and few know the most common symptoms. The campaign, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Women's Health, outlines symptoms and what to do.  http://www.womenshealth.gov/heartattack

Partnership for Health in Aging
A document on Multidisciplinary Competencies in the Care of Older Adults at the Completion of the Entry-level Health Professional Degree. To learn more, click here.


Healthy Aging in New Jersey
New Jersey created the "New Jersey Blueprint for Healthy Aging" as an informative tool for all New Jersey residents.

Strategies for Long-Distance Caregivers
onlinenursing.simmons.edu/nursing-blog/strategies-long-distance-caregivers
The Simmons University School of Nursing and Health Sciences provides this useful information for primary caregivers for family members who live in different states or regions.


Caregiver's Support
 www.videocaregiving.org
Terra Nova Film's free video website focuses on the needs of family caregivers! With excerpts from over 20 videos, it shows real people in real circumstances that offer practical solutions for other caregivers who may be dealing with some of the same concerns or experiences. The topics include Home Care Basics, Emotions and Alzheimer's, Driving and Dementia, and Falls. 

CaringBridge
Caring Bridge is a resource for anyone facing any health condition: big or small, acute or long term, available for as long as needed! Start a site for someone today so they can share their story and stay connected.

Service Learning Activities 

Stockton's Gerontology Program began implementing Service Learning opportunities in our courses as early as 1997 when we received a grant via the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education and the University of Pittsburgh from the Corporation for National and Community Service to infuse intergenerational service learning into the GERO curriculum. In that grant we developed seven service projects drawing students from five GERO course.  Click Here for a compendium of brief reports from the ten universities involved in the first year of that grant. More recently, several of our courses involve service activities in the community, longterm care facilities, and community organizations.  Below are two examples of service activities SCOSA has supported.

Freshman Writing Seminar Promotional Flyers

SCOSA director Dave Burdick and Stockton retirees Barbara Reynolds (Free-To-Be) and Gene Cranmer (Computer & Telecommunications Services) met with a freshman writing class to view and evaluate a writing assignment, which involved learning about SCOSA and then creating promotional flyers that could be used to promote SCOSA activities to retirees.

The assignment was envisioned by associate professor of first year studies and writing Heather McGovern as a way to make the assignment real, thereby raising the bar and fostering civic engagement. Students' assignments were creative and thought-provoking, each with its own unique twist. McGovern later thanked the guests, writing: "Thank you for taking some of your valuable time to help them learn. Some have received mostly negative messages about their writing ability. Knowing that I trust them to produce work for real people outside the classroom, and to have you participate in treating them with respect and valuing their work--and helping to educate them--makes a difference."

Document covers

 

SCOSA's Intergenerational Service Project - Sharing Across Generations

SCOSA  Document

Are you looking for a new way to provide service to our community?

Consider joining SCOSA’s Intergenerational Service Project. We’ll be pairing older adults in the community with students to work together on different service projects throughout the school year, creating lasting connections that make a positive impact on community organizations and agencies in need.

Contact Christine Ferri, PhD, SCOSA Education Chair for details.

 

Thoughts about Volunteering & Engagement

Purpose in Old Age
"The greatest good fortune, greater even than health, for the old person is to have his world still inhabited by projects: then, busy and useful, he escapes both from boredom and decay. The times in which he lives then remain his own, and he is not compelled to adopt the defensive and aggressive forms of behavior that are so often characteristic of the final years. His oldness passes as it were unnoticed. For this to be the case he must have committed himself to undertakings that set time at defiance."
-Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age