About SWLI

Mission and Goals
The Social Work Leadership Institute is a national initiative working to ensure that America's older adults receive the care they need to live life to the fullest— and that their caregivers also get the support they deserve. Our goals are to: Increase the number of social workers who specialize in aging; advance the field of aging care through research and best practices; forge multidisciplinary alliances to advocate on behalf of older adult care and relief for their caregivers; and move policy that will encourage care coordination for older adults.

The Social Work Leadership Institute (SWLI) at New York Academy of Medicine has a dual purpose. Its first aim is to cultivate leaders in the field of social work to extend their responses beyond the individual level to the needs of the population at large. A second aim is to establish itself as a central agent in cultivating and enhancing multidisciplinary partnerships in systems of care.

Projects
The first SWLI project, the Practicum Partnership Program (PPP) is an eight-year initiative coordinated by the Social Work Leadership Institute (SWLI) at the New York Academy of Medicine. PPP is working to train more than 1,000 social workers to work with older adults using a specialized field education model for students at masters-level social work programs. To this end, PPPs across the country will form a strong educational foundation to grow the ranks of leaders with aging specializations, and contribute to the growing workforce demands of America's older population.

The second SWLI initiative, the Center for Aging Policy (CAP), leverages research, public education and advocacy as part of a long-range policy agenda to ensure that the social work profession is an integrated part of care coordination for older adults. We're working with partners across multiple disciplines to pursue public policy solutions to ensure that there is a strong workforce of qualified social service professionals to meet the demands of America's growing older population.

Additional SWLI projects entail a partnership with NASW's Center for Workforce Studies in developing an online training course on geriatric social work competencies, as well as collaboration with NADD to foster leadership development and trainings.

Future
Part of the challenge of enhancing the readiness of the social work profession to respond to an increasingly multidisciplinary care system, and to be leaders in responding at the population level, is being able to sustain these changes over time. Promotion of diverse fundraising strategies, a dedicated advocacy and policy development initiative, and creative solutions will further establish aging as a central part of the professional social work experience. Gratefully, partnerships with other foundations are working to build capacity and promote education and training for social workers to meet the aging imperative. Atlantic Philanthropies has created the Institute for Geriatric Social Work at Boston University School of Social Work to improve education and policy links for global social work professionals. The Hearst Foundation has also established a scholarship program in several schools of social work.

The Social Work Leadership Institute at The New York Academy of Medicine is committed to making certain that cultivating leadership become the norm in social work education, and that public policies support the retention of qualified social workers in the aging labor force. At present, with the life spans of older persons ever-increasing, we work to ensure that the social work profession is grounded in sound research and practice. As social workers, our response on multiple levels and through multiple venues is vital to us, both as professionals and to the wide range of people we aim to serve.