MAC Project: One-Year Update

January 1st marked the end of the first year of the CSWE Gero-Ed Center’s Masters Advanced Curriculum (MAC) Project, whose goal is to promote the gerontological preparation of MSW students specializing in health, mental health and substance use. This Project is unique in its focus on engaging faculty whose teaching and research expertise is not gerontology.

On July 1, 2007, the Gero Innovations Grant began 2 years of funding for 14 MSW programs to develop, implement, and evaluate different methods to increase the gerontological competencies of their students in health, mental health, and/or substance use courses. Project Directors of these grants are collecting baseline data on their programs and are planning strategies to implement new curricular resources in such courses. These materials will later be made available on www.Gero-EdCenter.org.

In spring 2007, the three Resource Review workgroups met to begin the review of the state of knowledge related to aging in each specialty area. The final reports from these national workgroups, due out later this year, will provide social work faculty a comprehensive review of the relevant empirical research, evidence-based interventions, and curricular resources available on selected topics in each specialty area.

As the MAC Project begins its second year, we look forward to furthering this goal with the dissemination of these resources to the social work education community and the development of an eLearning course in one or more of these specialty areas.