UNE School of Social Work awarded grant to work with rural, aging populations

The UNE School of Social Work has been awarded its third Health Resource Services Administration (HRSA) Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training grant, which provides advanced year students with stipends to work with Maine’s underserved aging population.

The more than $448,000 Training in Aging Diversity, or TRIAD, grant is a four-year program creatively designed to bring classroom and clinical education to Maine’s rural communities. “We want students in training to be immersed in rural areas so that they fall in love with rural practice,” said Director of the School of Social Work Shelley Cohen Konrad, Ph.D., who is the principal investigator for the grant. “Fostering students’ passion for working with underserved populations will make them that much more likely to seek employment in those areas once they graduate.”

“This award reflects the School of Social Work’s vision for enhancing Master of Social Work graduates’ ability to deliver high quality, culturally appropriate care to aging individuals and their families residing in rural Maine,” said interim dean of the Westbrook College of Health Professions Karen Pardue. “This grant serves not only to support the education of aspiring social work students, but also contributes to cultivating a workforce committed to rural care delivery and improving the health and well-being of older adults”.   

The goals of TRIAD include advancing knowledge of the needs and desires of today’s older adults and improving workforce understanding of what constitutes best practice behavioral health services for this population.

Through this grant, UNE will seek clinical field placements and residencies for students in rural Maine. The School of Social Work will also develop core curriculum in aging and neuroscience in collaboration with the Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences, establish a TRIAD certificate program and collaborate with UNE’s Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) grant to advance knowledge of aging and substance use disorders. Additionally, UNE will host TRIAD Simulation Summits in conjunction with the Interprofessional Simulation and Innovation Center that bring together educators and practitioners from across professions to share knowledge in aging diversity.

The TRIAD project officially begins on September 30, 2017.

To learn more about the University of New England’s Westbrook College of Health Professions visit www.une.edu/wchp

To apply, visit www.une.edu/admissions