November 2, 2014 - 16:56
I am constantly heartened by the ideas expressed by members of this class. This is a caring, insightful, critical-thinking group of people with very expanded humanitarian world views. As a person approaching the early range of “old age” as it is defined, I am looking down the barrel of what possibly awaits me within the next decade or so. Therefore it is encouraging to imagine that those graduates emerging will take part in influencing social policy and programs and hopefully return to person-in-environment centered social work as is mentioned in Silverstone’s paper.
It is horrifying to confront the present reality of many elderly who seem to be demoted in their social standing and muzzled by a system which in many ways refuses to even acknowledge aging people. They (we) become faceless, amalgamated by group descriptions, and not valued as contributors to society. I see that often the elderly are infantilized and lose their voice.
There are approximately 700,000 positions that will need to be filled by social workers in the next few years. I hope that some of these positions will be filled by people who are motivated and influenced by the ideas expressed by my fellow classmates.