Articles & Publications
Bonnie Boswell Reports: Generation Xchange
PBS SoCal | August 2018
California is having a long-time teacher shortage, ranking dead last nationally in student-to-teacher ratios. In South Los Angeles, The Generation Xchange program tries to bring retired volunteers to elementary school classrooms so as to assist teachers and inspire students. Their experiment turned out to be a win-win for both the young scholars and the older adults...
How Intergenerational Programs Benefit Everyone – Leveraging Older Adults in Los Angeles: One of Our Few Increasing Natural Resource
Los Angeles Sentinel | February 2019
The Los Angeles Generation Xchange (GenX) program is an intergenerational, academic-community partnership between the Division of Geriatrics in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The Gen X program is currently in four elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District; 54th, 59th, 74th and Windsor Hills Elementary Street Schools. The GenX Program trains and places older volunteers in K-3rd grade classrooms where they work with students to improve academic skills (reading and math) and address behavioral issues (e.g., inability to focus during class sessions, behaviors that disrupt class activities)...
The L.A. Generation Xchange Project
U Magazine | Spring 2018
Generation Xchange is a partnership among the UCLA Department of Medicine Divisions of Geriatrics and General Internal Medicine, the Los Angeles Urban League and principals from several L.A. Unified School District elementary schools. The project is an inter-generational program that places older volunteers into kindergarten through third grade elementary school classrooms to help students improve reading and math skills. Its goal is to improve academic and behavioral outcomes for the children while simultaneously offering health promotion for older adult volunteers...
One Volunteer’s Journey
Los Angeles Sentinel | August 2017
The Los Angeles Generation Xchange (GenX) program is an intergenerational, academic-community partnership between the UCLA Department of Medicine and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) BD1/ Dr. McKenna. The program seeks to improve academic and behavioral outcomes for elementary aged children in Los Angeles while simultaneously offering ‘health promotion’ for the growing population of older adults in the local community. GenX engages them in a program offering social, cognitive and physical activity – all known predictors of health and well-being...
Lonely Planet
U Magazine | Fall 2016
The changes came so gradually that, for a long time, Paula Dutton didn’t realize she was in trouble. This was just modern life, after all — the cross-country distance from her close-knit family in Philadelphia, the end of a 10-year marriage that never quite jelled, the death of one parent and then the other. By the time Dutton, who now is 71 years old, retired from her job with an airline in 2011, she was lonely to a degree that shocked and frightened her...