I see education as a tool of social and attitudinal change for older people. Formerly in Canada, many nonprofit programs for seniors had subsidized education and training components. Reductions in government spending in healthcare and social services have forced older people to work as volunteers in the nonprofit sector, but with paltry sums of money for training and expenses and some of the work being unrewarding, we are currently experiencing a crisis in volunteerism. Describe a challenge that is ahead for your organization. Another big challenge for me as a researcher is to make a case for education as health promotion, to show the value of older adult education as an investment in the future, as a way of saving healthcare and social service dollars and building a renewable supply of community volunteers.
Results are difficult to measure quantitatively.
Then there's the intergenerational issue. Social and educational institutions will have to figure out how to maximize engagement with people of other generations whether as volunteers, consumer or advocates. More organizations will form a pool of expert knowledge and experience using younger retirees to engage in community problem solving. The lesson in both realms is the need to diversify one's skills and investments in future projects, to start early, experiment with more options, find latent talents. People expect continuous re-education in their careers, especially in certain professions and industry, and once they have grasped the principle in one area, they can apply it to another.