MILFORD — A $5 million grant will help solve an age-old problem in Delaware as two entities partner to care for the First State’s growing and aging population.
The grant, made available through the congressionally directed spending process thanks to Delaware’s delegates – U.S. Sens Tom Carper and Chris Coons and Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) – was awarded from the U.S. Health and Human Services to Delaware State University’s Wesley College of Health and Behavioral Science.
The Historically Black University will use the funds to partner with Education, Health and Research International, Inc. (EHRI) based out of the Milford Wellness Village to create a new Geriatric Workforce Education Program, offering unique training opportunities to students training to join the health care workforce.
“One of the things we can do and need to do is put together a workforce, train a workforce, to work with people my age and the age of Joe Biden and to make sure that we have the ability to be not just functional but able to make contributions in different roles in life,” Carper said on Friday morning at the Milford Wellness Village.
DSU Wesley College of Health and Behavioral Sciences Dean Dr. Gwen Scott-Jones said she, along with her team and the leaders behind the Wellness Village such as CEO of Nationwide Healthcare Services and owner and operator of the Milford Wellness Village Meir Gelley, quickly worked for three weeks to write the grant. When successful, she knew it would help “educate and train the health care, supportive care, workforces, [in] how to care for older adults with dementia or other health related disorders through an interprofessional and collaborative community approach.”
She told the Delaware Business Times that unique training opportunities such as the geriatric workforce program will dramatically help the students as they grow, as well as the community which needs more professionals with specializations such as geriatric care.
“It will allow these individuals to go out into the population and specialize in age-friendly and also dementia-friendly care,” she told DBT. “Delaware is known as a retirement state and we have a lot of older adults here already. Oftentimes, these individuals will come to an emergency room setting and they may have signs and symptoms of the beginnings of dementia that could be interpreted as if they were having psychiatric problems and they could be misplaced. However, we can now work with our students and educate health care providers to make appropriate assessments that will lead to appropriate treatment.”
Along with additional educational training and curriculum both in the classroom and in the field thanks to DSU’s new partnership with the Wellness Village, the grant will also afford transportation options, as well as internships for its nursing and social work students, who otherwise would not have access to those hands-on opportunities.
While the partnership began on July 1 of this year, clinical placements for nursing and social work students for this program will begin soon for the fall 2024 semester.
“The beauty of DSU partnering with EHRI at the Wellness Village is that Del State will provide the senior-focused training as well as their clinical rotations at Milford Wellness Village service providers,” Gelley told the crowd during the announcement. “We, at EHRI, look forward to embarking on this exciting mission together with DSU.”
