Featured Graduate: Raleigh Stephens
Wednesday, August 21, 2013 at 11:54AM
After graduation, my plans will be to remain at Peachford Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where I currently work with older adults with various mental and behavioral disorders. At the same time, I am continuing to investigate doctoral education. From there, I will continue to seek out other career opportunities working with older adults in the aging fields of assisted living facilities, nursing homes or adult day centers.
As I am currently a part of the Alzheimer's Support Group at my church, I would also like to advocate for older adults at the local or national level relative to policies and laws to ensure that older adults are provided quality healthcare, job opportunities and fairness and other resources to better enhance their quality of life and well-being. This will allow me to become more familiar with state and national laws concerning our older adults and what we can do to help change and improve the inequality. I am exploring the Ombudsman organization which is true vehicle for advocating for quality care and treatment for older adults in residential and LTC facilities.
In the near future, my hope is to one day own a state of the art adult day center consisting of aquatic therapy, land aerobics, computer training, arts and crafts, music therapy, catered meals, etc. I am also strongly considering including a childcare component into the development. As I have learned, "intergenerational relationships" promote optimal aging through love, feeling valued and relational reciprocity (caring for children.) I am also thinking about even creating a potential respite component (more of a medical model) for individuals with special needs (i.e. cerebral palsy, mental retardation, etc.) Studying gerontology has really opened my eyes to the numerous opportunities available to me as a gerontologist.
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