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Life is a Transitional Process

Ouachita Council on Aging
Life Goes On.

Life is a sum total of all our experiences, our growth and development, our hopes and our disappointments. 

It's a movement from conception to death. We move from one transitory stage of development to the next transitory stage.

As we move through in life, we learn to deal with our life experiences in our own functional or dysfunctional way. 

Life Transitions discusses this progression of life.  Life may not always go the way we plan it. Aging is a mix of planned and unplanned progression in life.  Some life goals can be planned ahead of time while some life events happen inadvertently.

Getting older is about letting life unfold itself and learning to make decisions that allow us to be as independent as possible for as long as possible.  And let's not forget that life is about learning to deal with death as well.

Exploring life and finding the most functional solutions to our life transitions is what Life Transitions is all about.  It explores a journey.  It also explores possible solutions and options that our community is able to offer us to make our journey more rewarding and more comfortable.

In the next 10 years, we will be losing more than half of the workforce working with the elderly through attrition.

We'll also highlight the dire need for a trained professional workforce in the field of Gerontology (the study of aging).  In the next 10 years, we will be losing more than half of the workforce working with the elderly through attrition.  Workers will either retire or die of old age.

At the same time, the number of people getting older will increase. An increased life expectancy coupled with a decreased workforce will create a critical shortage of service-providers for the elderly. Then who will take care of our senior citizens? Who will take care of us as we get older? 

Together we'll work toward community understanding of the crucial need for a new well-trained professional workforce willing to work with the elderly population.

Anita Sharma Ph.D., LCSW, is a Gerontology and Social Work Educator, Researcher, and Practitioner. She holds an M.A. in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, a prestigious social sciences university in India, a Master of Social Work (clinical practice) and a Doctorate in Social Work from Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Louisiana and serves as a pro bono consultant to various agencies.
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