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NKU School of Social Work’s Dr. Suk-hee Kim receives 2020 CORSW Community Impact Award


Dr. Suk-hee Kim, an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Northern Kentucky University, has been selected as the 2020 Council on the Role and Status of Women in Social Work Education (CORSW) Community Impact Award recipient.

In 2016, Dr. Kim reached out to Golden Tower, a nonprofit, high-rise, public housing residential community in Covington, and proposed a collaboration with NKU’s social work program. The proposed collaboration involved establishing a curriculum and experiential learning program for Kim’s students and community senior residents at Golden Tower.

NKU’s Dr. Suk-hee Kim has been selected as the 2020 CORSW Community Impact Award recipient. (Photo provided)

Kim wanted her students to understand the complexities of geriatric services for low-income seniors before embarking on their professional careers.

Kim’s initiative, Rising Hope for Aging, integrates social work students into the Golden Tower and is one of the sites for the NKU Nurse Advocacy Center for the Underserved. Dr. Kim and her students not only provide social stimulation that the residents so desperately need, but also conduct important needs assessments and mental health screenings to determine the interventions necessary for residents to successfully age in place.

Prior to the pandemic, Kim also provided the Gerontological Society of America’s fourth-year national Careers in Aging week on campus to raise awareness about the diverse careers available in the field of aging. Due to the unprecedented events surrounding COVID-19 this year, Kim developed and provided two webinars: “An Epidemiological Response to COVID-19,” presented by the epidemiologist from Hamilton County Public Health, and “Never Too Old to Dream,” given by the Community Relations for Second Wind Dreams.

Kim’s other significant gerontological contributions include gerontological social work curriculum development and program development for the gerontology microcredential (graduate and undergraduate) at her institution. She also played a key role with the Adult Learner Advisory Board and her colleagues to earn her university the designation as an Age-Friendly University.

NKU is the only university in Greater Cincinnati and Kentucky to join the international effort to support intergenerational learners at the time of receiving an Age-Friendly University designation in 2020.

Council on Social Work Education


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