Eldercare Organizations Receive Boost from Program

October 14, 2002

Eldercare Organizations Receive Boost from Program

CHICAGO— The Buehler Center on Aging at Northwestern University has launched a program to assist in building the research capacity of community-based organizations that serve and care for the elderly. The program, called ASSERT (Aging Services Support for Evaluation and Research Training), is funded by a $271,000 grant from the Retirement Research Foundation.

According to project director Rebecca L. Berman, PhD, research assistant professor at The Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, ASSERT’s goal is to enhance the ability of such agencies to develop and use research to improve services for older people.

The ASSERT project is designed to foster broader university-agency partnerships that will enable social service organizations to better incorporate practical and useful research into their daily routines, Berman said.

ASSERT will offer training and other supportive services via a network of research and evaluation specialists at Northwestern University and linkages to student researchers from Chicago-area colleges and universities.

Berman, with Madelyn A. Iris, PhD, associate professor of medicine and principal investigator on the project, and other Buehler Center on Aging researchers, developed partnerships with 11 Chicago-area organizations that provide services for the elderly to assist them in identifying their research priorities and information and research skills needs.

“Agency partners” include: the Chicago Department on Aging; the Chinese-American Service League; the Coalition of Limited English-Speaking Elderly; the Council for Jewish Elderly; Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly; North Shore Senior Center; Presbyterian Homes, Senior Action Services, Inc.; Suburban Area Agency on Aging; 20th Century Seniors of the Counseling Center of Lakeview; and the White Crane Wellness Center.

ASSERT will hold a number of training workshops for agency partners and host several seminars, as well as provide agencies and students with an intern matching service that targets an organization’s research and evaluation needs. ASSERT will work with student researchers who are considering a career in applied research and wish to gain experience working with commmunity-based organizations.