• Social Work students helped nursing home patients deal with Ike evacuation

    I just got word of one more example of Baylor students helping out during and following Hurricane Ike’s landfall last month and thought it was worth sharing. Among the evacuees brought to Waco were about 20 nursing home residents suffering from dementia. Dealing with an evacuation is stressful for anyone, but for people with dementia, changes in location and caregivers are that much tougher.

    A local nursing home volunteered to host the group, even though adding 20 new residents to an already full load is a lot for any facility to deal with. Baylor School of Social Work students jumped in to help, led by professors Dr. Jim Ellor and Helen Harris.

    Harris says the students “calmly and competently visited with persons who needed presence and caring and reassurance. They were skillful social workers. They were tender ministers. They met ‘the least of these’ and saw the face of Christ. And I saw the face of Christ in them.”

    Sic ’em, Social Work students!