SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF EXPERIENCE CORPS PARTICIPATION

体验团(EC)代表了一种新的高级服务模式，旨在创造新的、更具生产力的 为老年人发挥生产性作用，以解决公立小学未得到满足的需求，并提供 在老年人中促进健康的社会模式，旨在改善他们的社会/心理， 认知和身体功能。与拟议的为期5年的EC随机试验相结合， 老年人随机参加EC或其他志愿者机会，这是项目的主要目标 首先，要测试老年人在社会和心理功能方面是否有更大的“进步” 成年人随机参加干预[EC]组；第二，测试假设的社会和经济利益 心理功能调节EC参与对认知和身体的假想益处 功能和健康状况。欧共体参与者的预期社会和心理收益明确地得出 来自EC计划的核心特征，包括在学校安置训练有素的志愿者团队(提供 志愿者的数量达到临界值，并促进集体“团队”效能感)，让他们完成 满足学校需求的有意义的角色，需要承诺每周15小时，并提供激励 报销以抵消志愿者费用(如交通费、餐费)。作为这些计划的结果 我们预计，参加欧共体将在这两个方面的重要方面取得进展 老年人的社会和心理功能，包括更多的社会参与和 发展新的关系，增加有用性和价值感，更多的生成感， 自我效能感和自尊。我们预计，这些心理社会功能领域的成果将反过来 有益于老年志愿者的认知和身体功能。项目4的次要目标 是为了测试EC计划对更广泛的学校社区的影响。具体地说，我们将测试 假设在小学中，EC团队的存在会导致更积极的发展 学校社区中其他成年人对老龄化和老年人能力的态度(例如， 教师、教职员工)。

The Experience Corps (EC) represents a new model of senior service, designed to create new, generative and productive roles for older adults to address unmet needs of public elementary schools, and to provide a social model for health promotion among older adults, aimed at improving their social/psychological, cognitive, and physical functioning. In conjunction with a proposed 5-year randomized trial of the EC, with older adults randomized to participate in the EC or other volunteer opportunities, the primary goals of Project 4 are to, first, test for hypothesized greater "gains" in social and psychological functioning among older adults randomized to the intervention [EC] arm; and second, test whether hypothesized benefits in social and psychological functioning mediate hypothesized benefits of EC participation for cognitive and physical functioning and health status. Expected social and psychological gains for EC participants derive explicitly from core features of the EC program which include placing trained teams of volunteers in schools (providing a critical mass of volunteers and promoting a sense of collective "team" efficacy), having them fulfill meaningful roles to meet school needs, requiring a commitment of 15hours/week and providing an incentive reimbursement to offset volunteer expenses (e.g., transportation, meals). As a result of these program features, we expect that participation in the EC will result in gains with respect to important aspects of both social and psychological functioning among the older adults, including greater social engagement and development of new relationships, increased feelings of usefulness and worth, greater sense of generativity, self-efficacy and self-esteem. We expect that gains in these domains of psychosocial functioning will in turn confer benefits for cognitive and physical functioning in older adult volunteers. A secondary goal of Project 4 is to test the impact of the EC program on the broader school community. Specifically, we will test that hypothesis that presence of the EC teams in elementary schools results in development of more positive attitudes toward aging and of older adults capabilities among other adults in the school community (e.g., teachers, staff).