Enhancement of individual and community competence: the older adult as community worker.

This paper presents an evaluation of a primary prevention program designed to enhance individual and community competence in older adult community workers and in community residents with whom they worked. A total of 22 community workers and 97 community residents participated in the study; 30 residents constituted as posttest-only control group. Pre-post changes included increased knowledge of community services among all participants, as well as increased number of community information channels and increased life satisfaction for the workers. Residents, particularly black residents, became more internal, and their increased sense of personal control was related to their increased knowledge of services. Thus, the helper-therapy principle was supported for these older adult, mostly female, community workers, and their helping role had a net empowering effect.