About the School

Heather Young New Director of de
Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging

Dr. Heather Young, whose doctoral thesis on resilience and change in older adults led to her involvement in the design of environments that promote healthy aging, is the new director of the de Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging in the School of Nursing. She will replace Dr. Deborah Ward, Interim Director and Associate Professor of Psychosocial and Community Health.

Young began her nursing career working in critical care in a small, rural hospital. "I began to notice that most of the people I cared for had gray hair," she says. "I found myself thinking about end-of-life issues and quality of life, but felt I had little preparation to understand these issues." She went on to become one of the first nurses to earn a gerontological nurse practitioner degree at the University of Washington, completing her master's degree concurrently with her doctorate. But rather than practice in the private setting, she turned her attention to research, exploring the role of environments in promoting good mental and physical health.

"I was driving around one day in 1989 and saw a sign about the expansion of one of the first ERA Care retirement communities. I called the President and CEO, Eli Almo, and asked if I could study people moving into the new wing and how they adjusted." Almo eventually asked Young to consult with him on program development for Ida Culver House Broadview. When the School of Nursing created a community partnership with ERA Care, Young took on the role of community health director, and, when she completed her graduate studies, she became executive director at Broadview and a research associate professor in the School of Nursing. Eventually, Young became Chief Operations Officer for the six ERA Care communities, a position she held until early this year. Drawing on all her skills as a nurse and former dietician, "as well as a few new ones learned along the way," Young was responsible for the management of all aspects of retirement living, including nutrition, recreation, health care programs, physical plant, marketing, and "ensuring that over 500 ERA Care employees understood the special needs of older adults."

Young has also played an instrumental role in shaping policies that affect older adults through nursing research. She has served as co-investigator on a project to explore family care giving and long-term care utilization among Japanese Americans in King County, taking into account the Japanese experience with war and internment camps. Since 1995, she has also been involved at the state level in evaluating new legislative policies that allow older adults to live at home as long as possible. A two-year study by Young demonstrated that RNs could train and delegate specific health care tasks to certified nursing assistants without compromising care, thus opening up a wider range of care possibilities for health consumers on Medicaid.

"With the competition for health care services as baby boomers age, we can no longer be passive recipients," Young explains. "This is why nursing is so important, teaching people how to take control of their health care without taking over for them."

Under Young's leadership, the de Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging will continue to foster student interest in gerontology. The Center currently offers a wide range of nursing scholarships, mentorships and faculty development opportunities, many in conjunction with the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York. It is also involved in interdisciplinary education and some "creative community partnerships," according to Young, noting the influence of the Center's mentor, Dean Emeritus Rheba de Tornyay, who "exemplifies the importance of nurturing nurses in this field and the value of education in understanding the aging process."

"For the first time in the history of the world, there are more grandparents than grandchildren," says Young. "I am looking forward to building on the de Tornyay Center's excellent foundation to increase excitement about the field, to link up with other disciplines dealing with aging populations, and to develop an innovative curriculum that is a model for the future."

Additional information about the de Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging is available on their website, http://www.son.washington.edu/centers/de-tornyay/.

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