As a Faculty Fellow in Engaged Learning, Jenna Wells hopes to learn how to build and sustain long-lasting and meaningful relationships with community partners. She is developing a course that will examine both the empirical research and lived experiences of family caregivers for older adults. In this course, undergraduate students will learn about the challenges of providing quality care for older adults and persons with disabilities while also maintaining the quality of the caregiver’s own lives and the lives of their family members.

Students will deepen their understanding of this vulnerable population through integrative learning, analytical thinking and critical reflection on the research in connection with their real-world experiences with caregivers from our local community. Through participating in this program, Wells will learn to work collaboratively with local community partners to design learning experiences for students to interact with real-world caregivers.

The goal of these learning experiences is to be mutually beneficial, such that the students are providing support or services to the caregivers (e.g., friendly visiting, errands, respite), while also gaining valuable firsthand experience. They will work closely with leaders from these community organizations to ensure that the students’ involvement is supportive and useful, rather than adding demands to their already-limited time and resources.