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Task force on Aging

Chairs

Steven David and Liz Asta

Mission

The major mission of the Division 44 Task Force on Aging is to raise awareness of psychological issues in the adult development and aging of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. The Task Force on Aging promotes scientific research and education on LGBT aging as well as the dissemination of such relevant information to psychologists, students, and the general public. The Task Force seeks to accomplish this mission through the following goals:

• Efforts to support and facilitate LGBT aging research through the sponsorship of LGBT aging related programs at the APA annual convention.
• To encourage the inclusion of LGBT aging research in scholarly publications.
• To promote representation of LGBT aging issues in related areas of psychological study through liaison with other APA divisions and facilitating Division 44 liaison to the APA Committee on Aging.
• To support and encourage the development and distribution of LGBT aging related educational resource materials for psychologists, educators, students, and the general public.
• To inform Division 44 members on current LGBT aging issues through articles in the Division 44 newsletter and other relevant ways.

Current activities

We have a new co-chair! Liz Asta, a doctoral student under the mentorship of Tammi Vacha-Haase, Ph.D. at Colorado State University (Fort Collins) Counseling Psych Dept. will be co-chair with Steven David for the task force for the next year (until convention 2008). Her mentor's lab at CSU has been working on LGBT aging issues from a few very interesting perspectives including LGBT older adults in long-term care settings and Liz is working on a study of older adults’ attitudes towards their gay and lesbian peers.

We are publishing LGBT Aging-related articles. Task force member Paul Cernin and co-chair Steven David have collaborated on a review article of psychotherapy with LGBT older adults. This article was recently accepted and is currently in press: David. S., & Cernin, P.A. (In press). Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Older Adults. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services. In addition, this article was recently accepted: David. S., & Knight, B.G. (In press). Stress and coping among gay men: Age and ethnic differences. Psychology & Aging.

Doug Kimmel has written a wonderful First-Person History piece for the Summer 2007 newsletter. We are hoping that others will write similar pieces and/or we are considering the idea of having TFOA members interview pioneers and write similar oral histories for the newsletter in order to share and preserve the very important origins and contributions of the mothers and fathers of LGBT psychology. (Anyone interested in participating in this, please contact us!)

We are continuing liaison work. With the very much appreciated support of division 44, co-chair Steven David was nominated and selected to sit on the APA Committee on Aging (CONA) Working Group for Cultural Competency in Geropsychology. This group met in Washington DC this spring to develop a report on cultural competency in geropsychology that includes representation of gender, ethnicity, sexual identity, and differently-abled persons.

The Task Force was successful in having Division 12 section 2 (Clinical psychology/clinical geropsychology) commit to co-sponsoring, with one of their programming hours a proposal for a two hour symposium on Psychotherapy with LGBT Older Adults at the APA Convention in Boston.

We are planning to propose a suite program for the APA 2008 convention. At the APA meeting is was agreed that we would propose a division 44-wide intergenerational "experiential" suite program that brings together members from all committees & task forces, all career stages, all ages, all cohorts, for an intergenerational dialogue/experience with the goal of encouraging division-wide intergenerational communication and mentoring. We are also discussing having the APAGS CGLBTC co-sponsor and possibly APA CLGBTC (and others?).

We are updating our LGBT Aging Bibliography. This bibliography was included in the Kimmel et al. (2006) book on LGBT Aging that grew out of the TFOA. Our new co-chair Liz is taking the lead on this project.

We are encouraging newsletter article submissions for the project on oral histories of Division 44 and Association of Lesbian and Gay Psychologists pioneers.

What You Can Do

• Join the Division 44 Task Force on Aging by contacting the Task Force chair.
• Inform the Task Force chair of current Task Force activities that you would like to participate in and/or of ideas for new Task Force activities.
• Attend the Task Force on Aging annual meeting in the Division 44 suite at the APA annual convention.