Two in five adults older than 65 live with diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance (American Diabetes Association [ADA], 2003; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002). Diabetes is a chronic disease that is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, and lower extremity amputation. Aggressive control of blood glucose delays or minimizes complications (ADA, 1999; Cerveny, Leder, & Weart, 1998; Herman & Eastman, 1998).Treatment often requires changes to diet, physical activities, stress management, smoking or alcohol consumption, self-blood glucose monitoring, and insulin injections (for a review, see DeCoster, 2001). Older adults confront more challenges in making lifestyle changes (Butler, Davis, Lewis, & Nelson, 1998), are least likely to receive diabetes education (Lawton, 1994), must contend with age-insensitive instruction (Croxson, 2002), and are expected to assume a passive patient role (Shaffer & Sherrell, 1995). Empowerment is both a process and an outcome by which people exhibit control and involvement in their lives. The feminist paradigm provides helpful insights into meaning of concept of power. Power is a feeling of energy, potential, and competence among people (Hartsock, 1985). According to Browne (1995) empowerment is the process of liberation of self and others, as a life force, a potential, a capacity, growth, and energy, where one works toward community and connection responsibly as opposed to working primarily toward one's individual good (p. 360). An age-competent empowerment approach must embrace social, physical, and cognitive changes associated with aging (Morell, 2003). Using a feminist paradigm, we offer 44 age-competent empowerment techniques to diabetes management. VALIDATION AND SUPPORT 1. Accept older adults and avoid trying to change them. Empowerment occurs when we acknowledge and champion experiences of marginalized people (Morell, 2003). Acknowledge older adults' self-view, situation, and diabetes management efforts (Browne, 1995) through traditional active listening techniques. 2. Recognize older adult as expert. Enter helping relationship seeing client as expert (knower), viewing yourself as unknowing student (learner) (Lee, 2003). 3. Assist older adult in accepting that he or she is an individual with diabetes. In addition to being accepted, older adults should have a degree of self-acceptance. Support verbal acknowledgment of disease and integration of its meaning into older adults' identity. 4. Encourage older adults to express their feelings about diabetes, yet recognize differences in each person's emotive culture (Gordon, 1990). Unexpressed or underexpressed emotion confines needed energy for lifestyle change and empowerment (Funnell et al., 1991). 5. Maximize opportunities presented by life stressors (Gutierrez, 1994; Hart, 1996). Social workers must take advantage of these empowering moments and get older adults together to interact, provide mutual support, and problem solve. 6. Create a diabetes first-response team of older adult volunteers to meet with newly diagnosed individuals. 7. Create a psychological safe environment that has clear norms and expectations for clients and professionals, of which acceptance, unconditional support, and respect are paramount (Arnold, Butler, Anderson, Funnell, & Teste, 1995). 8. Advocate in collaboration, keeping older adult as main instigator of change (Berg, 1994). 9. Promote group advocacy by building coalitions among older adults, encouraging them to advocate for their needs with health organizations. 10. Support familial balance. Advocate for a harmonizing of personal, diabetic, and familial needs (Brown & Furstenberg, 1992). 11. Overall, persistently overpraise and undercriticize (Rogers, 2004). …