January 14, 2022 — Jennifer Jorge, LCSW, has been named as co-chair of the Southern California Geriatric Social Work Education Consortium (GSWEC), based in San Fernando, CA. She currently serves as Director of Community Services at the Motion Picture and Television Fund, based in Burbank, where she has worked since 2006. From 2005 to 2006 she was a GSWEC intern at the MPTF. Besides her clinical experience, Jorge has held teaching posts at the University of California, Los Angeles, California State University, Northridge, and done research at UCLA Department of Medicine – Geriatrics, in Reseda.
In this volunteer leadership role, Jorge will be helping to guide initiatives of the nation’s first integrated regional network aimed at improving geriatric social work education and field training. This mature inter-organizational collaboration currently involves eight Southern California Schools of Social Work and twelve non-profit agencies comprising Centers of Excellence where internship field placements occur.
According to GSWEC Co-Chair June Simmons, “The overarching goal of GSWEC’s internship program is to increase the number of students who specialize in working with older adults by developing “aging- rich” field internships in the graduate social work education programs within both Los Angeles and Orange County.
Jennifer’s experience as both an intern herself in the program and now as a supervisor of GSWEC interns at MPTF provides our program with invaluable insights.”
Simmons serves as President and CEO at the Partners in Care Foundation, which is the founder and home of GSWEC and also a GSWEC field placement Center of Excellence. She said that “ultimately we are working to increase the number of social workers prepared to be leaders in the field of aging. Jennifer is a shining example of how that process has worked, and we are incredibly pleased to have her serving as co-chair of the consortium.”
To learn more about the Southern California Geriatric Social Work Education Consortium, please visit www.picf.org/partners-in-action/gswec/ or email your question to: info@GSWECnow.org