This is not about what you think. It’s not about passing wealth to the next generation.
The alarm bells have been sounding. Indeed, many articles have been written and statistics
published about this age cohort and the impending impact on care. Without waxing philosophic,
an undeniable crisis of care exists throughout the nation. Indeed, there is a dangerous dearth of
workers and allied health professionals qualified to provide the care required by individuals
grappling with comorbidities and neurodegenerative conditions.
I have blogged before about my desire to create and innovate. While it could be more than
enough to work in and on a legal practice, spending upwards of 60 hours per week meeting,
drafting, designing, thinking, analyzing, marketing, and networking, those actions have never
been sufficient. The urge to develop new programs to enhance the lives of older Americans and
those who support and assist them has been growing stronger with the progression of the
practice.
Over the past decade, I have launched several programs under the Concierge Care
Coordination® umbrella, all designed to provide holistic services to older Americans, the largest
growing demographic.
Recognizing the inefficiency of declaring the obvious, I wracked my brain about what we could
do to contribute to a solution. I have more than enough data to support the success of the
collaborative model in my practice, to wit, the integration of geriatric social work with elder law.
Additionally, and even more importantly, the benefits to family members of individuals
receiving care are both astounding and unquantifiable. While providing coordinated services to
individuals and their care partners, the Concierge Care Coordination® model transformed my
practice, reinvigorated my passion for elder law, and provided the impetus for spreading its
gospel.
About six years ago I had that eureka moment, an epiphany of sorts, where I hit my palm against
my forehead. I had spent time speaking to social work and law students – both together and
separately – and educating them about the model. Clearly, we need to push the model into
academia and encourage and incentivize social work students to embrace aging and enter the
field of geriatrics and gerontology. We have had interns from several social work programs over
the years, almost none who previously expressed an interest in the field. Except for our current
intern, each student entered our office with an expressed desire to work with children or
individuals with mental health issues. While not minimizing the ongoing need for counseling
around those issues, maximizing the number of social workers trained to assist the elderly is my
goal. After a year of field work and supervision, and a bit of proselytizing, we successfully
demonstrated the importance of, and need for, well-trained and educated geriatric social workers.
While we are certainly headed in the right direction, the track needs to be elongated and
widened.
So I took the model on the road, introducing it to two New York universities, one downstate and
one upstate. And I am so proud and pleased to announce that we have partnered with Adelphi
University in creating and funding the Goidel Gerontology Fellowship. I applaud Adelphi University for embracing the model and recognizing the need to educate
and train social work students in the field of aging and gerontology. Adelphi is recognized as the
first university in the nation to offer such a unique program. Goidel Law Group looks forward to
many years of collaboration and support.
Please stay tuned for additional announcements and developments, as other programs at an
upstate university are in the development stages. I am personally and professionally excited
about the expansion of our efforts and goals.
If this has piqued your interest in any way, please reach out to me. Let’s work together to leave a
lasting legacy.
