Changing the Conversation Toolkit

Changing the Conversation Toolkit

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The Changing the Conversation Toolkit will be your guide to a “quick start” to applying reframing aging principles to day to day communications. This toolkit will guide you through hot topics related to evidence-based framing strategies and how these topics relate to advancing age-inclusive policies. This toolkit includes webinars, YouTube videos, handouts, and more. 

This toolkit is designed to provide users with the option to explore materials by topic or by product. The tabs above will guide you through the contents of the toolkit. Use the tabs to customize your experience, as a launching point to your reframing efforts or as a reference in your ongoing work.  

  • Contains 4 Component(s), Includes Credits

    Experts share about the work being done in nursing home care reform and share research-based recommendations for communicating about nursing home care. This guidance is intended to help inform the messaging and communications of care providers, administrators, researchers, policy advocates, and others working to build support for change.

    An important topic in advancing age-inclusive policies is nursing home care. In this section, experts share about the work being done in nursing home care reform and share research-based recommendations for communicating about nursing home care. This guidance is intended to help inform the messaging and communications of care providers, administrators, researchers, policy advocates, and others working to build support for change. Hear from Trish D’ Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP, GSA’s vice president of policy and professional affairs and executive director of the National Center to Reframe Aging, Hannah Albers, program director of the National Center to Reframe Aging, Travers Jasmine L. Travers, PhD, MHS, RN, AGPCNP-BC, assistant professor at the New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, Moira O'Neil, PhD, senior vice president of research interpretation at the FrameWorks Institute, and Barbara J Bowers, PhD, RN, FAAN, the founding director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing’s Center for Aging Research and Education. This portion of the toolkit is supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation.

    Barbara J Bowers, PhD, RN, FAAN

    Emerita

    University of Wisconsin-Madison

    Dr. Bowers’ research focuses on frail, older adults and people with lifelong disabilities, in both community and residential settings. She is interested in how public policies, organizational practices and models of care delivery influence quality of care and quality of work life for caregivers. Her interest in work life quality for workers in long term care systems has led her to examine causes of staff turnover, the relationships among organizational structure, organizational culture, management practices, and care outcomes, and to explore ways to improve the effectiveness of staff development. Her work with informal caregivers at home has led to the development of tools to provide anticipatory guidance and support caregiver decision making.

    Professor Bowers is the founding director of the School of Nursing’s Center for Aging Research and Education.

    Professor Bowers is an expert in qualitative research methods. She serves on the editorial board of Qualitative Health Research, The Western Journal of Nursing Research and The International Journal of Older People Nursing. She is associate editor (qualitative and mixed methods research manuscripts) for The Gerontologist and oversees Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research Resources in the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    Trish D'Antonio

    Vice President, Policy and Professional Affairs The Gerontological Society of America

    Executive Director, The National Center to Reframe Aging

    Patricia M. D’Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP is the Vice President of Policy and Professional Affairs for The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and a board-certified geriatric pharmacist. Trish directs GSA’s policy initiatives and is responsible for developing relationships with organizations in the aging arena. Trish represents GSA on several policy coalitions and serves as co-chair for the Adult Vaccine Access Coalition, president of the board of the Protecting Access to Pain Relief and Chair of the Friends of NIA.  Additionally, she serves as the Executive Director for the National Center to Reframe Aging, the central hub to advance the long-term social change endeavor designed to improve the public’s understanding of what aging means and the many ways that older people contribute to our society. Before joining GSA, Trish served as Executive Director for the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy and Program Manager for the Pharmaceutical Control Division, where she was responsible for the regulatory and policy development for the practice of pharmacy and served as liaison to the FDA, DEA, and other federal, state, and city organizations that promote safe handling of medications.  She received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Duquesne University and her Master of Science in Health Finance and Master in Business Administration with a concentration in health care from Temple University. She completed a residency in administration and finance at The Philadelphia Geriatric Center.

    Moira O’Neil, Ph.D.

    Senior Vice President of Research Interpretation

    Frameworks Institute

    Moira O’Neil serves as Senior Vice President of Research Interpretation at the FrameWorks Institute. In this role, she leads FrameWorks’ efforts to interpret and share communications science with the nonprofit sector so it can more effectively drive social change. Moira manages a team of communications professionals and social scientists who help fields of practice frame social issues in ways that have the proven power to deepen understanding and inspire action. She oversees the team’s efforts to synthesize framing research, teach advocates to apply it to strategic communications, and train sectors to unite around evidence-based framing recommendations. A senior researcher, Moira also directs the organization’s efforts to analyze framing patterns in the media and nonprofit sector and writes in-depth research reports on a wide range of topics, including immigration, child mental health, and housing and homelessness.

    A sociologist with expertise in how frames impede or advance social movements, Moira has helped hundreds of organizations strengthen their communications capacity. She regularly delivers presentations and lectures on issue framing at nonprofit organizations, colleges, and universities around the country and abroad. And she publishes regularly in the academic press, with articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals including Child Abuse and NeglectGenerationsQualitative Research, and the Revue Internationale d’Education de Sèvres. Her work has also appeared in USA TodayThe Hechinger Report, The Boston Globe, and other publications.

    Moira joined FrameWorks more than a decade ago. Since then, she has conducted framing research around dozens of social issues and has led major projects to reframe the public discourse around immigration, race, and criminal justice. She also brings deep expertise in issues related to sexual violence, equity, and equality. Prior to joining FrameWorks, Moira worked as a research associate for the Vera Institute of Justice on projects related to immigration policy and at the Institute for Scientific Analysis on issues related to substance misuse and drug policy. She holds a BA in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she studied the medicalization of war trauma at the turn of the 20th century in the United States.

    Dr. Jasmine Travers, AGPCNP-BC CCRN PhD RN

    Assistant Professor

    NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing

    Jasmine L. Travers is an assistant professor of nursing at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her career is dedicated to designing and conducting research to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities in vulnerable older adult groups using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Her current work focuses on mitigating disparities in appropriate access and use of in-home and facility-based long-term care for older adults (i.e., home & community-based settings, nursing homes, and assisted living). Currently, Travers is the principal investigator of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation four-year Career Development Award through the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program which she is examining the association of neighborhood disadvantage with nursing home outcomes using large-scale nursing home data and a Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leader five-year K76 Award through the National Institute on Aging which in this mixed-method study she will develop a survey instrument aimed to identify unmet needs that are disproportionately driving avoidable nursing home placements. Most recently, Travers served on the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes which on April 6, 2022, released the widely anticipated report titled, The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality.

    Travers has published widely on the topics of aging, long-term care, health disparities and inequities, workforce diversity and workforce issues, vaccinations, and infections. She has presented her work at regional and national health services research, gerontological, nursing, and public health conferences.

    Prior to joining the faculty at NYU, Travers completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale University and a T32-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the New Courtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

    Travers received her Ph.D. at Columbia University School of Nursing, MHS at Yale University, MSN in Adult-Gerontological Health at Stony Brook University, and BSN at Adelphi University.

    Hannah Albers

    Program Director

    National Center to Reframe Aging

  • Contains 3 Component(s) Recorded On: 04/19/2023

    This portion of the toolkit reviews how we can all tell a more complete story of aging when crafting presentations, press releases, academic papers, letters to the editor, websites, publications, consumer materials, speeches, and other communications.

    Changing the way we talk about aging begins at home with our own communications. This portion of the Changing the Conversation Toolkit reviews how we can all tell a more complete story of aging when crafting presentations, press releases, academic papers, letters to the editor, websites, publications, consumer materials, speeches, and other communications.

    Nancy Morrow-Howell

    Betty Bofinger Brown Distinguished Professor of Social Policy

    Washington University in St. Louis

    Nancy Morrow-Howell is an international leader in gerontology, known for her work on productive engagement of older adults. Her research contributes to knowledge about programs, policies and organizational arrangements that maximize the productive engagement of older adults while promoting positive outcomes for the individuals themselves. Her research documents outcomes for individual, families, and communities associated with work, volunteering, and caregiving by older adults. Her interests include the development of the Next Move initiative, now a part of WashU for Life,  where older adults are facilitated in transitions to new roles in employment, volunteering or education.

    At the Brown School, Morrow-Howell teaches gerontology courses. She also teaches a freshman course on aging, aimed at increasing young people’s understanding about long life and the need for social transformation. As director of the university’s Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging, she promotes gerontological research and education across disciplines and schools.

    She has received Washington University Distinguished Faculty Award and the Brown School’s Outstanding Faculty Award. In 2008 and 2011, she was given the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award by Washington University. She was the recipient of the 2011 Career Achievement Award from the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work and of the 2013 Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research.

    Joellen Leavelle

    Communications Director

    USAging

    Joellen Leavelle joined USAging in July 2017 as Communications Director. In addition to being USAging's liaison with the media, Joellen is responsible for ensuring that all USAging publications, social media properties, websites and collateral materials reflect the organization’s mission of building the capacity of its members to assist older adults and people with disabilities so they may live with dignity and choices in their homes and communities.
     
    Joellen comes to USAging from the Pension Rights Center where she was Communications and Outreach Director. While there Joellen promoted the Pension Counseling and Information Program and worked with retirees on communications strategies to help them secure their rightfully-earned pension benefits.  
     
    Joellen holds a bachelor’s degree in English from James Madison University and received a Master of the Arts degree in Communications from Trinity University.

    Hannah Albers

    Program Director

    National Center to Reframe Aging

  • Contains 3 Component(s)

    Age is a vital aspect of our identities. This portion of the toolkit will explore age as a point of intersectionality and its role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Discover how recognizing age as a vital aspect of identity can help shape equitable policies that support everyone at every age.

    We are all aging, and age is a vital aspect of our identities. This portion of the toolkit will explore age as a point of intersectionality and its role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Discover how recognizing age as a vital aspect of identity can help shape equitable policies that support everyone at every age.

    Moira O’Neil, Ph.D.

    Senior Vice President of Research Interpretation

    Frameworks Institute

    Moira O’Neil serves as Senior Vice President of Research Interpretation at the FrameWorks Institute. In this role, she leads FrameWorks’ efforts to interpret and share communications science with the nonprofit sector so it can more effectively drive social change. Moira manages a team of communications professionals and social scientists who help fields of practice frame social issues in ways that have the proven power to deepen understanding and inspire action. She oversees the team’s efforts to synthesize framing research, teach advocates to apply it to strategic communications, and train sectors to unite around evidence-based framing recommendations. A senior researcher, Moira also directs the organization’s efforts to analyze framing patterns in the media and nonprofit sector and writes in-depth research reports on a wide range of topics, including immigration, child mental health, and housing and homelessness.

    A sociologist with expertise in how frames impede or advance social movements, Moira has helped hundreds of organizations strengthen their communications capacity. She regularly delivers presentations and lectures on issue framing at nonprofit organizations, colleges, and universities around the country and abroad. And she publishes regularly in the academic press, with articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals including Child Abuse and NeglectGenerationsQualitative Research, and the Revue Internationale d’Education de Sèvres. Her work has also appeared in USA TodayThe Hechinger Report, The Boston Globe, and other publications.

    Moira joined FrameWorks more than a decade ago. Since then, she has conducted framing research around dozens of social issues and has led major projects to reframe the public discourse around immigration, race, and criminal justice. She also brings deep expertise in issues related to sexual violence, equity, and equality. Prior to joining FrameWorks, Moira worked as a research associate for the Vera Institute of Justice on projects related to immigration policy and at the Institute for Scientific Analysis on issues related to substance misuse and drug policy. She holds a BA in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she studied the medicalization of war trauma at the turn of the 20th century in the United States.

    Lauren Pogan [she/her] (Moderator)

    National Director

    Diverse Elders Coalition (DEC)

    Lauren advocates for policies and programs that improve aging in our communities as racially and ethnically diverse people; American Indians and Alaska Natives; and LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning and other self-identifying members of the community) people. The coalition is comprised of six national organizations: National Asian Pacific Center on Aging (NAPCA), National Caucus and Center on Black Aging (NCBA), National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA), National Indian Council on Aging (NICOA), SAGE (advocacy and services for LGBT elders), and Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC).

    Lauren identifies as a mixed race second-generation Filipina American. She holds a Master of Arts in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Washington, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Colby College.

    Christina DaCosta

    Chief Experience Officer

    SAGE

    As the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) for SAGE, Christina DaCosta’s mission is to bring the voices of LGBTQ+ elders from the margin to the mainstream and center their experiences in engaging with SAGE’s national initiatives and programs. In her role as CXO, DaCosta leads strategies that grow SAGE’s marketing and communications efforts that promote positive images of LGBTQ+ life in later years. DaCosta will also create and scale national consumer initiatives that enhance the lives of LGBTQ+ older people and their experience within the larger community. A SAGE staffer since 2008, Christina’s longevity puts her in a unique position of retaining a rich institutional memory. Her media savvy allows her to work towards SAGE’s vision for the future of LGBTQ+ people in exciting and innovative ways.

    DaCosta earned her Bachelor’s of Arts from New York University, graduating summa cum laude with a major in Political Science and a minor in Philosophy.

  • Contains 3 Component(s)

    In this portion of the toolkit, learn more about the power of intergenerational connection to change the conversation on aging and review work currently being done to bring generations together.

    Research from Cogenerate points to the power of intergenerational programs and relationships to change attitudes towards aging. In this portion of the toolkit, learn more about the power of intergenerational connection to change the conversation on aging and review work currently being done to bring generations together.  

    Eunice Lin Nichols

    Co-CEO

    CoGenerate

    Eunice (You-knees) is Co-CEO of CoGenerate. She has spent more than two decades bringing older and younger generations together to bridge divides and solve problems, including leading CoGenerate’s innovation portfolio, serving as national campaign director for the Generation to Generation initiative, running >span class="TextRun SCXP104739943 BCX0" xml:lang="EN-US" lang="EN-US"> (now a program of AARP), and scaling Experience Corps from one neighborhood school in San Francisco into a thriving Bay Area program helping thousands of kids read by third grade. Eunice has been recognized as a Next Avenue Influencer in Aging and is a graduate of the Billions Institute Fellowship for Large-Scale Change. She is also a recipient of the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for advancing innovative and effective solutions to California’s most significant issues.

    Audrey Rider

    Early Childhood Field Specialist

    South Dakota State University Extension

    Audrey is the Early Childhood Field Specialist for South Dakota State University Extension. Audrey supports and works with childcare programs and providers to increase school readiness and enhance social, emotional growth and development among South Dakota’s youngest citizens. Audrey interacts closely with parents, teachers, early childhood professionals, caregivers, agencies and stakeholders to coordinate resources and advance initiatives for young children in South Dakota. In addition to outreach, Audrey collaborates with other land grant universities’ extension and early childhood development programming throughout the nation to enhance programming and resources available to South Dakotans.

    Darcy Evon

    CEO

    The Village Chicago

    Darcy is the CEO of The Village Chicago. Darcy brings a wealth of experience to the Village, including leadership roles at public and private universities, libraries, medical, technology, non-profit organizations and media companies. She is active in Chicago’s corporate and civic communities and serves on the boards of Ingenuity Inc., The Guild of the Chicago History Museum, The Kalo Foundation, and the Chicago Innovation Advisory Board. Darcy is a member of the Economic Club, Executives Club, and a variety of cultural and business organizations. She is an avid history buff and author who published Hand Wrought, an illustrated history of jewelry and metalwork from the Chicago Arts and Crafts Movement.

    Leacey E. Brown

    Gerontology Field Specialist

    South Dakota State University Extension

    Leacey E. Brown serves South Dakota as a SDSU Extension Gerontology Field Specialist. What that means is that Leacey is an expert on aging. Aging is a process of gaining momentum, where we gain knowledge, skills and experience. To take advantage of those resources, we need modern solutions to the challenges of aging. Leacey works with individuals, families and communities to improve aging for all of us who call South Dakota home. She is based in Rapid City, South Dakota, but serves the whole state of South Dakota. Please feel free to reach out to her with any questions.

  • Contains 1 Component(s)

    This video from the National Center to Reframe Aging's Frame of Mind Video Series reviews how our implicit bias towards aging plays a role in changing the conversation on aging.

    Watch this video from the Frame of Mind Series to learn more about how making our implicit biases towards aging visible can change attitudes about aging, influence policies and programs and help all of us live more active and meaningful lives as we get older.