Community Education
Our Finger Lakes Geriatric Education Center (FLGEC) funded by HRSA’s Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program, serves a 25-county area of the Finger Lakes and the greater metropolitan region of Rochester, providing resources and geriatric education to an extensive network of providers to improve health outcomes for older adults.
Future plans to distinguish the University of Rochester as an Age-Friendly University will include providing older adults with personal and career development as both teachers and learners, offering opportunities for engagement in our education and research activities and promoting intergenerational learning through sharing of expertise between learners of all ages.
Current and Prior Community Education Projects
Bridge to Practice
"Bridge to Practice" models have been used extensively in several career fields (e.g. nursing, law) to bolster the exposure to and infusion of knowledge where known educational gaps exist. The FLGEC seeks to eliminate gaps in geriatric knowledge through several activities, supplementing clinical, team-based practice. In addition to Grand Rounds, Journal Club and the Geriatric Assessment Clinic, the FLGEC offers the Geriatric Immersion Experience (GIMME) and the Ger-E-News newsletters to keep community practitioners' up-to-date in the field of geriatrics.
Engaging Older Adult Learners as Health Researchers (ENGOAL)
From 2017-2019, Project ENGOAL brought together 21 older adults (age 53+) from underserved neighborhoods to participate in a citizen research training program. Participants became educated consumers of research by partnering with geriatrics researchers to develop community relevant research questions, improve their health literacy, advocacy and engagement in their healthcare.
Renewing of the Mind
As Director of the Aging Well Initiative (AWI), Dr. Silvia Sörensen initiated a series of mental health education and outreach classes for the faith community in Rochester. In the past 5 years, these have evolved in to the Renewing of the Mind workshops, and the Interdenominational Health Ministry Coalition.
CTSI Community and Collaboration Core (CCC)
The CCC is dedicated to developing a pool of older adult health researchers who can serve as co-researchers and educators on existing and future health research projects.
As part of the CCC activities, citizen researchers are engaged to become Community Research Ambassadors (CRA) who will educate, recruit, and enroll community members into studies in collaboration with the 11 local branches of YMCAs.
Dr. Silvia Sörensen, a gerontologist and associate professor at the Warner School for Education and Human Development, speaks about her involvement in each of these projects.