What is the Vermont Partnerships Project?

The Vermont Partnerships Project is part of a larger, national effort to help prepare social workers for the expanding area of needs of older people and individuals with disabilities. 

The Partnerships Project prepares BSW and MSW students with person-centered (PC) and participant-directed (PD) competencies and evaluates the outcomes of such education. It targets the Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) and social work programs in the Administration for Community Living’s (ACL) eight Enhanced ADRC Options Counseling states (Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin). In addition, the project works with the Visiting Nurse Services CHOICE Health Plans in New York City (VNSNY) and the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College in NYC. Combined, the eight states and NYC give the project the capacity for nationwide impact and sustainability.

This project builds upon the Gero-Ed Center’s successful utilization of the planned change model of curricular and organizational change, which garners key stakeholder support, conducts thorough curriculum assessments to determine courses targeted for infusion, and tests strategies to infuse and sustain new competencies and content in required courses. It also utilizes the NRCPDS’s extensive PC/PD training resources and national collaborations with the Aging and Disability (A/D) Network.

The goals of the project are to:

1. Develop productive working relationships between A/D network agencies and social work (SW) programs.
2. Educate a cadre of SW faculty to infuse PC/PD competencies within BSW and MSW curriculum.
3. Prepare students with PC/PD competencies to work effectively within the A/D Network.
4. Evaluate the training and the competency-based resources.
5. Disseminate PC/PD competencies, curricular resources, and best practices to the national SW education community.