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An increasing number of custodial grandparents are raising grandchildren, and intensive childcare is stressful with many negative personal, interpersonal, economic, and health implications. Grandparents' strengths, including resilience, positive caregiving appraisal, and social support should be considered in the face of parenting stress and adversity. Guided by the stress and resilience model, the current study investigated the associations of parenting stress and coping resources with life satisfaction and mental wellness among custodial grandparents (N = 76). Data were collected between December 2020 and April 2021, through collaborations with community-based agencies located in two metropolitan areas, which provide supportive services to custodial grandparents and their families. Findings showed that more parenting stress was associated with less life satisfaction and worse mental health, and that stress management boosted life satisfaction and mental wellness. Grandparents with more informal social support and social service utilization fared better than their counterparts with less social support and no experience of service use. The results of this study suggest that social work interventions should focus on improving stress management to cope with daily and caregiving stressors. Social workers can help with informal social support and formal social services utilization to address caregiving needs among custodial grandparents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social isolation has been recognized as a critical public health problem. As the most vulnerable population, older adults are disproportionately affected by social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purposes of this study were to examine the association between social isolation and loneliness among U.S. older adults and to explore the moderating effect of solitary activity by using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Social isolation was measured by six indicators, including marital status, living arrangement, social participation in any clubs or social organizations, and the frequency of social contact with children, family members, and friends. Loneliness was assessed by eleven questions derived from the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Solitary activity included 11 types of activities that respondents could perform alone with limited or no social interaction. Results from the multivariate regression analyses indicated that unmarried status and lower frequency of social contact were associated with more perceived loneliness. Solitary activity significantly moderated the negative effects of the low frequency of social contact with family members on loneliness. The findings implicate that social work programs and interventions can aim to expand social networks and provide more opportunities for solitary activities, particularly for isolated older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how older adults access organizational volunteer roles and what socio-structural factors are associated with the access. Using the data from the Current Population Survey (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 2002), bivariate analyses show that there are variations in access to volunteer roles across types of organizations. Results from multinomial logistic regressions indicate that education, income, age, and race are associated with the ways that older adults access volunteer roles. Voluntary organizations are advised to approach older adults directly, use current volunteers to recruit potential ones, publicize their organizational goals, and disseminate relevant information in efforts to improve access of older adults to volunteer roles. KEYWORDS. Organizational volunteer, access, older adults, organization type, socio-structural factor