NEW YORK—The Open Society Institute's Project on Death in America (PDIA) today announced $490,000 in grant awards to seven leaders in social work. These grants will support social work research and training projects to improve care for the dying.

PDIA has committed a total of $2,940,000 to recognize outstanding social work faculty and clinicians, and has selected 42 Social Work Leaders since the program's inception in January 2000.

"These awards promote the visibility and prestige of social workers committed to end-of-life care, and enhance their effectiveness as academic leaders, role models, and mentors for future generations of social workers," said Grace Christ, D.S.W, director of the PDIA Social Work Leadership Development Awards Program.

Social workers often take the lead in providing essential emotional and social services to the dying and the bereaved, including counsel on advance directives, emotional support to the terminally ill, and assistance in locating healthcare and financial resources. Yet social workers report gaps in end-of-life care education at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels and lack of access to leadership in practice, teaching, research, and advocacy.

"Social workers touch a broad array of areas within end-of-life care," said Christ. "Through practice, education, research, and policy development, we have the power to influence the culture of death in America."

The mission of the Project on Death in America is to understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement through initiatives in research and scholarship, and to foster innovations in the provision of care, public education, professional education, and public policy.

A list of the awards for 2003-2004 follows:

David Browning, M.S.W.
Center for Applied Ethics & Professional Practice
Newton, Massachusetts
Developing a Pediatric End-of-Life Care Curriculum for Social Workers
David Browning will develop a curriculum on child and family-centered end-of-life care for master's level social workers. The curriculum will provide social workers with the theoretical foundation, clinical expertise, and resources to provide optimal pediatric palliative care. The program includes facilitator's guides for educating social workers in the following six areas: engaging with children and families; relieving pain and other symptoms; improving communication and strengthening relationships; responding to suffering and bereavement; sharing decision-making; and establishing continuity of care.

Karen Bullock, Ph.D.
University of Connecticut
West Hartford, Connecticut
Resource Enrichment Center
Karen Bullock will create an online Resource Enrichment Center Project at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, enabling the school to provide continuing education for practitioners and graduate students. The online resource center will also facilitate collaboration between the School of Social Work and practice sites that might not otherwise have access to up-to-date research on care for the dying and bereaved.

Nancy Cincotta, M.S.W.
Mount Sinai Medical Center
New York City
A National Initiative to Unite Social Workers and Families in the Interest of Dying Children
Nancy Cincotta will organize a national network of social work experts in pediatric end-of-life care. Professionals and parents will partner to identify developmentally sensitive interventions, unique challenges, and opportunities to improve pediatric end-of-life care. Cincotta will create a listserv to serve as a virtual community for discussion, problem solving, resource sharing, and consultation for pediatric end-of-life care professionals.

Elizabeth J. Clark, Ph.D., A.C.S.W., N.A.S.W.
National Association of Social Workers
Washington, D.C.
Building Social Work Practice and Policy Competencies in End of Life Care
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest professional organization for social workers in the world, and brings important institutional resources to shape both the public policy and social work practice related to the care of the dying. NASW Executive Director Elizabeth Clark has the opportunity to guide program development and mobilization within the social work profession to help transform health care systems to a more humane approach to death. Clark will advance the role and competency of social workers in end-of-life care through the development of practice standards, communication, and continuing education.

Nancy Contro, L.C.S.W.
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Palo Alto, California
Latino Families in Pediatric Palliative Care
Most practitioners acknowledge that the most effective way to care for children is one based upon a family centered approach; however, within the realm of pediatric palliative care, there is almost no literature to guide practitioners. Even more lacking is literature examining the experiences and needs of children and families from non-Anglo cultures. The goals of Latino Families in Pediatric Palliative Care at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital are to enhance understanding and provide meaningful guidance to improve care for Mexican Latino families whose children are seriously ill or dying.

Rita Ledesma, Ph.D.
California State University
Los Angeles, California
Loss and Bereavement in an American Indian and Alaska Native Community
Rita Ledesma will examine the impact of loss and bereavement in the American Indian and Alaska Native communities of the greater Los Angeles region. She will use qualitative methods with two expert samples: 1) American Indians and Alaska Natives who reside in the community; 2) health and human services providers who work within the American Indian and Alaska Native community. She will establish a council of consultants to review the research protocol and data. Her findings will be used to develop training materials and curricula for social workers and allied health professionals who work with American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Aloen Townsend, Ph.D.
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
Cleveland, Ohio
Family Assessment Collaboration to Enhance End-of-Life Support
Families are an essential source of support for most adults facing death and, along with the terminally-ill individual, the focus of hospice and palliative care services. The family, especially family caregivers, can have a major impact on the patient's quality of life and interactions with service providers. The goal of Aloen Townsend's project is to improve end-of-life care for patients by improving the assessment of family caregivers' needs. The project is designed to address a critical gap: the lack of clinically relevant and scientifically sound measures for assessing family caregiver strain near the end of life.

About the Open Society Institute

The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grantmaking foundation based in New York City that serves as the hub of the Open Society Network, a group of autonomous foundations and organizations in over 50 countries. This network implements a range of initiatives that aim to promote open society by shaping government policy and supporting education, media, public health and human and women's rights, as well as social, legal and economic reform. To diminish and prevent the negative consequences of globalization, the Network seeks to foster global open society by increasing collaboration with other nongovernmental organizations, governments and international institutions. OSI was created in 1993 by investor and philanthropist George Soros to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help former communist countries in their transition to democracy. The Network has expanded its geographic reach to include foundations and initiatives in Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Haiti, Latin America, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, Turkey and the United States. OSI also supports selective projects in other parts of the world.