American Society on Aging Honors Leaders

ATLANTA (February 20, 2020)—The American Society on Aging (ASA), an association of diverse multidisciplinary professionals who seek to improve the quality of life of older adults and their families, will honor leaders in the field of aging during the presentation of the ASA Leadership Awards at the 2020 Aging in America Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

The ASA Leadership Awards are presented to individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to aging-related to research, administration or advocacy. ASA takes pride in recognizing leaders in the field who not only contribute to the success of ASA, but to the field at large.

ASA will present the following awards on Tuesday, March 24 during the opening General Session at 5 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta:

ASA Award
Louis Colbert, will receive the ASA Award, which is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to aging-related research, administration or advocacy. Colbert has spent four decades as a leader and mentor in the aging network. He has served in his current position as Vice President of Operations for the Philadelphia Corporation on Aging (PCA) since 2013, and previously as Director of the Delaware County Office of Services for the Aging. At PCA, which is the fourth largest Area Agency on Aging in the nation. He has worked diligently to bring attention to the efforts of male caregivers and also has facilitated an Alzheimer’s caregiver support group at his church for more than 15 years. He has served in several volunteer positions, including serving a term as Chair of the ASA Board of Directors.

ASA Hall of Fame Award
Bob Blancatois the recipient of the ASA Hall of Fame Award, which is presented to an individual who has, through a lifetime of advocacy and leadership, enhanced the lives of elders through demonstrated leadership at the national level. Blancato has spent his career advocating on behalf of older adults. He has demonstrated clear national, regional and local leadership in advocacy, particularly in elder justice (he formed the Elder Justice Coalition), nutrition and food insecurity. Blancato serves as the National Coordinator of the bipartisan now 3,000-member strong coalition, as well as Executive Director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Program and National Coordinator of the Defeat Malnutrition Today coalition. Blancato spent more than 20 years in the Congressional and Executive branches, including on the senior staff of the U.S. House Committee on Aging and as Executive Director of the 1995 White House Conference on Aging. He’s a visible and relentless advocate for improving national policy for older adults, leading efforts to increase Older Americas Act nutrition program funding by more than $150 million, ensuring passage in 2010 of the Elder Justice Act and advocating for the coordination of medical care and long-term services and supports in the ACA.

Gloria Cavanaugh Award for Excellence in Training and Education
The Gloria Cavanaugh Award for Excellence in Training and Education recognizes an individual or program that has made a significant contribution to training and education in the field of aging. This year’s recipient, the National Center on Law and Elder Rights (NCLER), provides tools and resources to the legal services sector and aging and disability communities to serve older adults with the greatest economic and social needs. Launched in 2017, and administered by Justice in Aging through a contract with the Administration for Community Living, the NCLER has made a lasting impact on the law and aging network by providing free training and one-on-one technical assistance to a network of more than 33,000 participants. NCLER has produced more than 75 webinars, on topics from elder justice to Medicaid long-term care, and created written guides to accompany each. More than 55,000 people have participated in the past three years NCLER’s online training. All webinars are free and all written materials widely available for dissemination.

Graduate Student Research Award
The Graduate Student Research Award is given to spur academic and clinical interest in the field of aging, and rewards the best unpublished graduate research paper on a completed project relevant to aging and applicable to practice.

Shubam Sharma, a doctoral candidate in Developmental Psychology at the University of Florida will be recognized for her paper Life Challenges and Resilience: Personality Continuity Relates to Current Positive Self-Functioning in Older Adulthood, which highlights how resilience can be fostered in older adulthood and investigates factors that promote resilience.

One internal resource for older adult resilience featured in the paper is perceived personality continuity, or how narrating life with a sense of purpose can be adaptive for older adults contending with life challenges.

Award for Excellence in Multicultural Aging
The Award for Excellence in Multicultural Aging recognizes organizations that have demonstrated high-quality, innovative programs enhancing the lives of a multicultural aging population. For the past 13 years, Age Friendly Seattle Coffee Hours have brought community elders and city officials together to explore topics such as healthy aging, legal and planning issues. Participants learn about city programming and services and officials hear from older constituents. The program coordinator, Lenny Orlov, intentionally sought out immigrant and refugee older adults via outreach to Russian- and Amharic-speaking (from Ethiopia) communities, as well as offering language interpretation in Khmer Russian, Vietnamese and Amharic.

Mental Health and Aging Award
Jill D. Bader will be honored with the Mental Health and Aging Award, which recognizes outstanding programs and services in mental health and aging. Bader, a marriage and family therapist in Seattle who does direct service work with older adults, has worked for years in volunteer leadership positions within ASA’s Mental Health and Aging Network and has put structures in place spread mental health awareness among ASA members. 

Religion, Spirituality and Aging Award
The Religion, Spirituality and Aging Award recognizes outstanding individuals, programs and services in religion, spirituality and aging, in an effort to inspire more spiritual exploration within the aging services field. This year’s recipient, Sandy C. Gregory is founding director of the North Carolina Baptist Aging Ministry and has built a statewide ministry that intersects daily with government agencies, nonprofits and private corporations, and provides innovative services to North Carolina’s older adults. Gregory has directed staff and community leaders in developing NCBAM’s most ambitious program, One Hope: a spiritual response to social isolation and loneliness. NCBAM is working statewide on disaster preparedness, as well as education on medication management, caregiving, healthy aging and advance planning.

Visit asaging.org/aging-in-america for more information.