Elder Care and Service Learning

Using a multidisciplinary approach to service learning in elder care, Seperson and Hegeman assist students in their actual experience with clients. With this text in hand, a professor can offer students an overview of all aspects of aging, community service, and social policy without putting 40 different articles on reserve.

Part I describes the diverse service-learning experience. Part II provides basic information on aging from demographic, biological, physiological, and psychosocial perspectives. Part III describes a service learning classroom and the many tools a student and a professor can use to maximize the learning in this special kind of class. Part IV is devoted to communication. Here, interviewing, surveying, and oral history skills are defined.

Part V helps the student prepare for the unexpected—what to do when one is actually in a service learning experience with an elder or a group of elders. Part VI is devoted to elder-care policy. Students and their professors will gain a perspective on how to think about and debate issues about aging. Part VII is devoted to case studies of very different service-learning experiences. Following are four comprehensive appendixes, including annotated bibliographies for further reading about service-learning and aging, a code of ethics, and a service learning elder-care manual for implementation of a program.

SUSANNE BLEIBERG SEPERSON is Professor of Sociology of Dowling College, Oakdale, New York./e

CAROL HEGEMAN is Director of Research of the Foundation for Long Term Care, Albany, New York./e