WVU to host Summer Institute on Aging June 5-8

Morgantown, WV, May 16, 2006:  Talkin' ‘bout that generation: the Boomers are growing older.

On January 1, 2006, the first of the "Baby Boomers" turned 60, igniting an explosion into senior status of 75 million "aging hipsters." The Boomers are regarded as persons born between 1946 and 1964 into a post-World War II United States experiencing dramatically increased birth rates and unprecedented economic prosperity.

WVU's 28th annual Summer Institute on Aging, to be held June 5-8, 2006 at Morgantown's Radisson Hotel, will gather social work and health care practitioners from around the region to discuss concerns, impacts, and special issues surrounding the provision of services to this unusually large cohort of older adults. Issues such as long-term care, Medicaid, health insurance access, ethics, addiction, voluntarism, and mental health will be on the agenda.

"Preparing for the Aging Boom: Impact and Action" is sponsored by the Division of Social Work in the School of Applied Social Sciences, in WVU's Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and the WVU Center on Aging.

Dr. Jeannette C. Takamura, Dean of the Columbia University School of Social Work and former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Aging during the Clinton Administration, will give the keynote address. She will examine ways in which the Baby Boomers may be expected to shape the aging agenda in West Virginia, the nation, and the world, and describe the challenges that communities will be compelled to confront.

Other speakers include Sally Richardson, Executive Director of the WVU Institute for Health Policy Research; Dr. Robert Applebaum and Dr. Kathryn McGrew of the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University; Jim Smallridge, Director of WV's State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP); and several members of the West Virginia University faculty.

For the full brochure and registration materials, see www.wvsioa.org. Discounted hotel rates will be available through May 26. A reduced "early bird" conference registration rate is in effect through May 19.

For more information, please contact Jacki Englehardt, Coordinator of Professional and Community Education in WVU's Division of Social Work, at Jacki.Englehardt@mail.wvu.edu or (304) 293-3501, ext. 3109.

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