Ithaca College

The Ithaca College Gerontology Institute has received a federal grant of $73,254 to train health professionals as a participant in the Finger Lakes Geriatric Education Center (FLGEC) consortium. This grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services covers the current (and fourth) contract year of a five-year grant subcontract (7/1/2010 to 6/30/2015), with the University of Rochester as lead institution.

“This funding acknowledges the great work that the Gerontology Institute and its partners have been doing,” said Rhoda Meador, director of the institute. She continued, “In these times of federal sequestration, having this grant renewed is truly a vote of confidence and allows us to continue training health and aging services professionals in 17 rural counties in central and western New York.”

In addition to Ithaca College and the University of Rochester, other members of the FLGEC grant consortium include SUNY College at Brockport, New York Chiropractic College, and St. John Fisher College, Wegmans School of Pharmacy. Currently there are 45 GEC programs throughout the United States, training doctors and other health professionals in the care of aging people.

At the helm of IC’s grant is Project Coordinator Christine Decker, who has led the institute’s FLGEC efforts since 2007, although the Gerontology Institute’s partnership in the FLGEC dates back to 1997.

“We’ve trained nearly 1,500 health professionals since this grant cycle started in 2010,” Decker explained. “We’ve held workshops, conferences, and speaker presentations,” she said, “along with on-line seminars, webinars, pod casts and on-line training modules.”

Recent training opportunities have included workshops targeted to specific professionals, such as “Falls Prevention Techniques” for home health workers, “Culturally Competent Care for LGBT Elders” for registered nurses, and the most popular training session, “Sorting Out the 3 Ds—Depression, Dementia, and Delirium,” for acute care providers.  An on-line course based on the “Sorting Out the 3 Ds” workshop is currently under development to make the information accessible to an even larger audience of rural health professionals.

The Ithaca College Gerontology Institute’s FLGEC offers training opportunities at no charge to agencies, hospitals, and other groups that provide services to older adults.

“We’ll work with you and your staff to plan the event, provide the speaker, develop publicity materials and handouts, and evaluate the event,” Decker said. Typically, the sponsoring agency will provide a meeting space and register participants.

For more information about FLGEC trainings, please contact Chris Decker at decker@ithaca.edu, or call the Gerontology Institute at 607.274.1965.