UAlbany Gerontology Professor Ronald Toseland Honored as American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare Fellow

Gerontology Professor Ronald Toseland will be recognized for achieving excellence in the field of social work and social welfare through high impact work that advances social good.

ALBANY, N.Y. (March 11, 2010) -- University at Albany Professor Ronald Toseland will be inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on April 21. Toseland, who serves as director of the UAlbany School of Social Welfare�s Institute of Gerontology, will be recognized for achieving excellence in the field of social work and social welfare through high impact work that advances social good.

"Professor Toseland has dedicated his career to improving the quality of life for older people," said Katharine Briar-Lawson, dean of the School of Social Welfare. "We applaud Ron on his induction and the Academy for recognizing his commitment and impact in the fields of social work and gerontology.�

Toseland, a professor in the School of Social Work since 1979 and director of the Institute of Gerontology since 1990, has a compelling and sustained research record, both as a scholar and methodologist. An internationally recognized gerontologist, Toseland's research has been funded regularly by the National Institutes of Health and by various other state and federal funding sources and foundations. He has applied more than 30 years of concentrated interdisciplinary research principally to two areas: social work practice with groups and effective interventions for problems faced by older people, including dementia, multiple chronic health problems and the physical and emotional demands of providing care for an ill family member.

Throughout his research career, Toseland has sustained and developed his interests in social group interventions and social services to elderly people and their families, and consistently produced research relevant to the delivery of social services and to clinical work with older adults. His work addressees the gap between research findings and their practical application toward providing effective and efficient social and health care services to older persons. Toseland, one of the only researchers who has studied and integrated the role of professional social services and self-help initiatives in serving the elderly, received an "investigator initiated award" from the National Institutes of Mental Health for comprehensive work in that area in 1986. Today, within the field of social work, Toseland is recognized as one of the most important contributors to empirical knowledge about group work.

The mission of the School of Social Welfare is to further social and economic justice and to serve people who are vulnerable, marginalized or oppressed, a mission implemented through education, knowledge development, and service that promotes leadership for evidence-based social work with a global perspective. The School was ranked 12th among social work schools nationwide in the most recent U.S. News and World Report. In addition, School of Social Welfare faculty consistently rank in the top five of all schools of social work nationally for their research and scholarship and the School is ranked second in per capita productivity.

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