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Few people outside of Hong Kong are aware of the plight of the thousands of poor Chinese elderly who live in cage-like structures in dimly lit old buildings in some of the most densely populated low-income neighborhoods in Hong Kong. This paper describes the living conditions of the cagewomen and the emergence of cagehouses and raises concerns about the future of the cagehouse elderly men and women after the transfer of sovereignty from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China on July 1, 1997.

In an era of limited resources, Hong Kong has developed a bold, innovative and controversial program which offers virtually cost-free two-day resort vacations to all elderly Hong Kong residents. The program is designed to improve the relationships between older adults and the members of their family support systems and to provide temporary respite for caregivers. It is the only program of its kind in Asia Pacific and, perhaps, the world.

This paper reports the findings of a survey of 108 elderly heterosexual and homosexual men and women in urban Central and Southern California. The purpose of the study was to test the assumption that elderly gay men and lesbians are more depressed and socially-isolated than their heterosexual cohort. The findings indicate that there are no significant differences between older heterosexuals and homosexuals in regard to depression and social support. However, the sources of social support vary with gay men and lesbians deriving significantly more support from friends, while heterosexual elderly derive more support from family. The findings suggest a need to redefine the concept of family to include 'friendship families.' Future research which investigates the way in which these friendship families are created and maintained has the potential to benefit all elderly, especially those who have no biological families or whose biological families are unavailable for support.

This paper describes the effort of the California Geriatric Education Center (CGEC) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to rectify the severe shortage of social work faculty trained in aging as reported in a recent national survey of schools of social work. The lack of gerontological social work faculty is a major barrier to the development of aging curricula in BSW and MSW programs. The CGEC Social Work Faculty Development Program (SWFDP) presents a model for faculty development in gerontology which addresses major issues in social work education.

Describes a course developed to use the growing popularity of adult education in order to serve a population that would not ordinarily seek counseling. Discusses the group experience and speculates on why the therapeutic experience occurred. (Author/ABB)

This paper identifies an unavoidable mismatch beween the clinical training experience and the student's understanding of relevant theory. This gap often means that beginning students are assigned cases before they are prepared. The author suggests that a brief list of "rules of thumb," basic organizing principles of practice, be constructed by the supervisor and presented to the student to serve as a guide for therapeutic work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]