CSP Students Work on Springfield’s Age & Dementia Friendly City Initiative

For two years, Liz McLaughlin traveled regularly from the UMass Amherst campus to the city of Springfield, twenty miles south, to work on a community effort to make the city more livable for its oldest residents.

McLaughlin, who graduated last May with a public health and legal studies major, has been part of the UMass Civic Engagement and Service-Learning (CESL) Community Scholars Program. Students in the program spend four semesters working with a community organization focused on positive social change.

Two current Community Scholars Program students—Parker Sweet, a junior public health and philosophy major, and Sharon Lincoln, a junior public health and legal studies major—continue the work with the nonprofit Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts (PHIWM). Students in the Community Scholars Program work with a diverse array of community organizations; other recent placements include Safe Passage, a Northampton nonprofit that provides services for survivors of domestic violence; Nuestras Raíces, a grassroots urban agriculture organization in Holyoke; and afterschool programs in the Amherst Regional Public Schools.

“I was looking for ways to be involved in social justice work,” McLaughlin said of her decision to apply to the Community Scholars Program. The placement with the PHIWM was a perfect fit, she said, allowing her to combine her interest in public health with her desire to address social inequities.

McLaughlin, Sweet, and Lincoln worked with the Public Health Institute to win Springfield designation as an “age-friendly city” by the World Health Organization. The WHO program recognizes communities for efforts to make their public spaces, housing, public transportation, health services, and civic and social organizations fully accessible to all residents, regardless of age. The PHIWM collaborated with city officials and community partners to secure the designation for Springfield, with the help of a grant from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation.

Throughout the process, the students have worked closely with two volunteer elders from the community, David Edwards and Winston Smith, who’ve served as guides and advisors to them in their work. “The students have looked to them as leaders and see that the expertise lies with community members,” said Deborah Keisch, director of the Community Scholars Program.

“We see the students as a critical part of the process,” said Samantha Hamilton, manager of PHIWM’s Live Well Springfield program, who oversees the age-friendly initiative. The students began by taking part in “walk audits,” assessing how accessible city neighborhoods are to seniors: Are there benches at bus stops? Are crosswalks clearly marked? Can people using wheelchairs navigate sidewalks?

The CESL students also assisted with surveys and focus groups of senior residents on the topics of housing and transportation accessibility, then compiled the data for the PHIWM staff. Last spring, the students conducted interviews with older residents about their experiences aging in the community and developed social media and marketing materials promoting the age-friendly effort. In June, the students and PHIWM staff celebrated at a summit with city officials and other stakeholders the awarding of Springfield’s designation as the first city in the country to receive three Age-Friendly designations – Age-Friendly City, Dementia-Friendly City and Age-Friendly Health System.

The two-year commitment that Community Scholars Program students make to their organizational partners is unusual for a student service project, and it offers many benefits to both parties. “The students build relationships, and they learn how public health and public policy works in practice,” Hamilton said. “They see the long process of changing a system and understand it from concept to implementation. This is a good learning incubator for them. And they bring their insights from the classroom.”

Reciprocity is a key element of the Community Scholars Program, Keisch noted. The students gain invaluable real-world experience, seeing firsthand that making systemic change can be a long and circuitous process. “They’re on a journey of understanding the impact of their work,” she said. But at the same time, the Community Scholars Program model underscores that the students’ first priority is to support their partner organization’s work and assist with existing efforts, in whatever way the community needs.

“When you’re working on a project that’s addressing an issue that was years or decades in the making, you learn to see yourself as part of a bigger process,” said Sweet, who has continued his work with PHIWM this year. “Students can help be part of the solution, but they’re not the solution. The solutions lie in the community.”

McLaughlin, who wrote her honors thesis for the UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College about her Community Scholars Program work, said the project helped her develop important professional skills, such as how to conduct surveys and interviews.

“One major thing I learned is how long and detailed these kinds of projects are,” McLaughlin said. She also learned the specific kinds of challenges elderly and other underrepresented people face in Springfield, from lengthy waiting lists for subsidized housing to a public transit system with significant service gaps. “That was a big eye-opener for me,” she said.

“One of the most valuable aspects of the Community Scholars Program is that students are able to build sustained relationships over two years, both in the community and in the classroom,” Keisch said. “That provides a significant level of depth and thoughtfulness to their learning about social change.”