Internship, BSW - Services for Older Adults

• Older Adults Division - Internship
• Waltham, MA, USA
• Paid Stipend of up to $1,600 per internship year
• Other
• Internship

Internship Title: 2024-2025 Undergraduate Social Work Intern – Services for Older Adults (SOA)

Hours per week: 16 (throughout the 2024-2025 academic year) 

Job location: Waltham, MA

About Services for Older Adults

With aging comes the unforeseen. Yet every adult deserves to age with dignity, purpose, and connection to community. Professional resources can be the key to that experience. Jewish Family & Children's Service (JF&CS), is a state-wide leader in advancing care for older adults, combining compassion and expertise. Through its Services for Older Adults division (SOA), JF&CS helps older adults, and their families navigate life transitions and health complexities through a range of services that support aging in community. 

The Division supports upwards of 3,000 people each year. Its work with older adults is distinguished by innovation, thought and practice leadership, and expertise with a broad range of aging issues, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, bereavement and mental health and wellness. SOA programs also connect with a wide range of other services within JF&CS, addressing basic needs, disability support and more.

The Role 

The Social Work Intern – Services for Older Adults (SOA) will provide support to a variety of programs within the Services for Older Adults Division, partner with staff in providing direct services to older adults and their care partners and learn about program development and implementation in a large nonprofit agency.

Exact projects will be determined based on the Division's immediate needs and the match with the interests and skills of the candidate, but likely responsibilities include:

• Partnering with Guardianship case managers to meet client needs, including identifying housing and other resources.
• Responding to incoming requests for information and referral
• Conducting research on relevant topics such as social prescribing, caregiver support, and programming to address social isolation and loneliness.
• Shadowing facilitators of bereavement support groups as well as those for care partners of people with Alzheimer's Disease or Parkinson's Disease
• Supporting storytelling initiatives that allow clients to share a powerful story from their lives. 
• Researching and updating a directory of memory cafes across the Commonwealth
• Conducting outreach to organizations in the Greater Boston area to engage them in our services.
• Attending and supporting the smooth operation of therapeutic arts programs
• Participating in agency-wide intern educational opportunities
• Other duties as assigned.

What we offer

• Paid Stipend of up to $1,600 per internship year
• Access to training and agency-wide intern seminar program
• Weekly Supervision

Qualifications 

• Enrollment in an undergraduate social work program
• A passion for working with older adults and a strong commitment to the mission and culture of JF&CS
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
• Entrepreneurial and self-directed

ABOUT JF&CS
For more than 150 years, Jewish Family & Children's Service has been helping individuals and families of build a strong foundation for resilience and well-being. We intentionally serve and employ people of all faiths, backgrounds, cultures, and abilities. Through an integrated portfolio of more than 40 programs reaching communities throughout Eastern and Central Massachusetts, JF&CS focuses on meeting the needs of new parents and their children, older adults and family caregivers, children and adults with disabilities, and people experiencing poverty, hunger, or domestic abuse.  

JF&CS is an equal opportunity employer who serves and employs people of all cultures and faith traditions and highly values diversity, equity and inclusion. Employment opportunities are available to all without regard for race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability.