“They’re Not All Grumps”: A Qualitative Process Examination of Two Intergenerational SERVICE-LEARNING Programs

ABSTRACT

This study compared two intergenerational service-learning programs in an undergraduate Psychology of Aging class. The longer, more relational intervention, the Lives Well Lived program, matched students and older adults exemplifying “successful aging” in a mutual interviewing, life review project utilizing documentary film, photography, and memoir creation. The comparison intervention also exposed students to older adults exemplifying successful aging, but in a shorter, less relational way. Post-intervention thematic analysis revealed students in the Lives Well Lived program had closer relationships with the older adults, more positivity about their own aging process, and more willingness to engage in future intergenerational relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• psychology
• service-learning
• intergenerational
• multi-generational

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank Sky Bergman, Lives Well Lived filmmaker, and Allison Scholl for serving as the second coder for this project. She would also like to thank the students, residents, and retired community staff for participation in the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara P. Bartlett

Sara P. Bartlett, DSW, LCSW is an adjunct lecturer at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where she teaches Psychology and Sociology courses to undergraduates. Her background is in social work with older adults and their caregivers including home health, hospice, dementia, care management, and psychotherapy in long-term care settings.

Phyllis Solomon

Phyllis Solomon, PhD is the Kenneth L. Pray Chair in Social Policy & Practice, Professor and the Associate Dean for Research at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. She is a mental health services researcher who has conducted numerous studies intersecting with the mental health service system including child welfare, nursing homes, and criminal justice, to name a few. With colleagues, she has conducted an extensive diversity of randomized controlled trials studies and has written a book and a book chapter on this methodology.

Zvi Gellis

Zvi Gellis, PhD is a gerontologist, licensed clinical social worker, and Director of the Center for Mental Health & Aging, School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania. He is a health services researcher studying the integration and outcomes of late-life depression care in home health and community-based care settings. He has extensive expertise in designing, implementing, and analyzing results of randomized control trials to answer important health policy questions related to delivery of integrated health and mental health care for chronically ill community-dwelling older patients, health-care quality, and service use. His research team was the first to study and publish an RCT on the effectiveness of tele-healthcare among community-based medically ill and depressed older adults.