Older Worker-Older Client:

Abstract

Untrained older workers, providing concrete services in the community to physically and mentally frail older adults, are often handicapped not only by a lack of training, but also by the fears engendered by their own personal losses, increasing frailty and advancing age. This paper explores one community social service agency's attempt to design and execute a training program to simultaneously address the needs of both older and younger volunteer workers and also foster a sense of worker self-esteem that would result, ultimately, in an improvement in worker-client contacts.