Geriatric Education

Age-Friendly Scholars Program

The Age-Friendly Scholars program (formerly known as the Master Faculty Scholars Program) is an Interprofessional Certificate Program designed to teach various health care practitioners gerontology, leadership, advanced communication and teaching skills. 

Through this program, offered by the Center for Aging, Health and Humanities and the VA, participants will:

  • Gain a unique set of skills necessary for holistic and person-centered care across the health care continuum for an aging population.
  • Increase awareness and teach practitioners techniques to harness the immense wisdom and creativity of older people in order to strengthen the care partnership.
  • Increase awareness and teach practitioners techniques to incorporate person-centered care across diverse settings.

An emphasis on seeing the whole person, listening to their story and their values, and integrating creative and humanistic approaches to implementing person-centered care will be woven throughout the program.

Past topics covered in this Program have included Age-Friendly Arts and Creativity, Diversity in Aging, Age-Friendly Businesses and Health Systems, Health Policy in Aging, and Technology in Aging.

For more information about this program, contact Andy Siegel at [email protected]

Weekly Podcast

Hosted by Center Director Melissa Batchelor, this podcast, “This Is Getting Old - Moving Towards and Age-Friendly World”, isn’t necessarily about people “getting old” — it is more about all “this” stuff that isn’t ready for our aging population. Tune in weekly to learn about all of the different things we need to do to move towards an age-friendly world or check out the hundreds of recorded episodes on topics from age-friendly businesses to Alzheimer's disease; from how to care for your aging loved ones to social media use as a healthcare professional.

Listen or learn more on Melissabphd.com:

Click here

Academic Programs

The following academic program options are available through the GW School of Nursing as an MSN, DNP or post-master's certificate.

The Person-Centered Care Toolkit is a resource for providers to teach concepts for a person-centered approach to care for older adults across health care settings. Tools and techniques are part of a three-fold approach of the toolkit that includes:

  1. Teaching tools for interprofessional healthcare providers,
  2. Activities to enable older persons to express themselves and their creative potential, and
  3. Self-care techniques for health care professionals to reenergizes and maintain their ability to provide a person-centered approach to care.