Gina Rossi is a licensed clinical social worker in the 香港六和开奖历史记录 community working in clinical and administrative roles for 30+ years.听
Rossi frequently presents on topics including midlife and older adult mental health, caregiving, family estrangement and challenges in life transitions. She is an adjunct instructor for the Master of Social Work program in the LSU School of Social Work where she mentors graduate students and prepares social workers for the profession.
Rossi guides her clients in an honest and direct approach to reframe their thought processes to recognize their strengths so that they are living their best life potential. Her work and research of mid-older life stages led to her signature workshop 鈥淎geism: Call it Out," along with three weekly support groups.
In 2017, Rossi received the 鈥淟SU Alumnae of Distinction鈥 from the LSU School of Social Work and in 2018 the 鈥淧ublic Servant of the Year鈥 from Governor Edwards' Office and the 鈥淩osemary Award鈥 from the Alzheimer鈥檚 Services of the Capital Area.
Embodying the fight against stereotyping, she is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves (Iraqi Freedom) and a krewe member of the Southdown鈥檚 Dancing Girls.
Gina Rossi is a licensed clinical social worker in the 香港六和开奖历史记录 community working in clinical and administrative roles for 30+ years.
We heard you received a pretty big honor recently.听
Yes, the National Association of Social Work awarded me the Social Worker of the Year for the state of Louisiana. I was very honored. There's nothing like being recognized by your peers, and especially my peers who are social workers. They're all working so hard in the field and doing amazing things.听
If you had to explain what a social worker is to a child, what would you say?听
One of the things about social work that I try to teach young people about is that it is very broad. We can do social work in so many different fields: mental health, policy and administration.听
When someone becomes a social worker, a whole door opens up to them.听
People can do direct practice where they're helping people one to one, or families, one to one. Or they can become policy makers and make changes that affect others.听
Can you tell us about the policy work you're working on?听
When issues come up, I'm able to gather a lot of support, momentum and attention exposure to certain issues. I am a board-approved supervisor by the Louisiana State Board of Social Work, and we have Facebook group where I'm the moderator for 700 people.
We pay attention to issues that have faced supervisors and coordinated with the NASW on two bills that have been very successful. One is the Interstate Social Work Compact, which would allow social workers to practice in other states. Suppose we have a client in Louisiana and they move to another state. With this, we'll be able to continue working with them.听
The other social work bill is tele-supervision. I was teaching a course at LSU when COVID hit, and I had to switch to Zoom online. It was shocking at first, but I was forced to learn. I learned about the benefits, how much more I could still contribute to teaching by doing it online.听
The whole time, I thought it was going to be all negative, and that's not true. We were forced to learn about doing supervision for social workers in their licensing phase, doing it online. After COVID, they stopped that. However, I was telling them that we need to continue this process and change the law. So we are now changing the law. That's been a great accomplishment.听
You mentioned that social work allows you to work in several fields. What are other fields you work in?听
I'm doing work with Alzheimer's services. I do private practice with people going through life transitions, adult children with their older adult parents and people going through gray divorce. One of the things I'm very interested in right now is people who are going through family estrangement.
A lot of people face a lot of challenges in life. For example, if a family member is diagnosed with dementia听鈥 those strong, dramatic changes can create fractures. If we can catch those early enough, give attention and help those people, we can save that family and decrease the amount of estrangement during that critical time.听
I also do a lot of workshops and training on ageism. We receive covert messages and become immune to them. In my workshops, people realize that they want to stop, identify it and address it so it doesn't affect their own mental health or expectations.听
What advice do you have for people who are going through big transitions later in life?听
One, recognize that wherever you are now, where you're going to be in the next five to 10 years is going to be a lot different. Certainly, leave room for flexibility and adjustment.听
Second, some of the things in the past that might be weighing you down are not going to be helpful to you. Right now or in the future, either resolve those issues or work through them. Making that decision is very important.
Third, recognize that our society gives us a lot of expectations. In doing so, it also gives us restrictions. I want people to recognize that they don't have to be restricted by messages that we've been receiving from society that tell us we're supposed to be acting or doing a certain thing at a certain age.听
What is the key to aging and combating these stereotypes?听
Certainly, you're going to age better if you're in better physical health听鈥 eating right, exercising. How our body ages is going to also affect how our mind ages. We know that now with research about the brain diet, the Mediterranean diet. We know that people in the blue zones live longer, and they're eating well or a certain way.听
Then, having strong social connections. We now recognize听social isolation and loneliness as a medical problem. Research shows that the more people are socially isolated, the more they're at risk for higher levels of medical issues such as stroke, heart problems, chronic illnesses, etc.听
With older individuals, we have an incorrect view that when people get older, they're going to automatically become lonely or feel lonely. We want to teach older adults that you're not supposed to be socially isolated just because you're a certain age.听
Intergenerational relationships are also very important and helpful. Research shows that one of the best things to fight ageism and a younger person's perception of aging is to put two generations together. The respect, understanding and kindness increases when we unite generations.听
