Registration: https://uiowaforms.wufoo.com/forms/belonging-is-infrastructure/

Overview: Social workers are working at the intersection of three converging crises: rapid population aging, increasing social disconnection, and workforce burnout. Research now demonstrates that social connection is a core determinant of physical and mental health, yet most service systems still treat belonging as optional rather than essential infrastructure.This workshop introduces the Visibility → Belonging → Thriving (VBT) Thought Model, a life-course framework integrating public health social connection research, intersectional visibility theory, and aging stereotype embodiment theory. Participants will examine how invisibility operates across the lifespan (youth, marginalized identities, and older adulthood), how internalized ageism impacts engagement and health outcomes, and how workforce sustainability is directly tied to community belonging systems.Participants will leave with practical tools to design scalable, evidence-informed belonging infrastructure interventions that improve client outcomes while protecting workforce sustainability.This session is highly interactive and includes case studies, systems mapping, and real-time intervention design.

Learning objectives:

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
• Analyze social isolation, loneliness, and internalized ageism as interconnected social determinants of health using current public health and social work research.
• Apply the Visibility → Belonging → Thriving Model to assess invisibility patterns across the life course and identify intervention points in practice settings.
• Design one scalable, evidence-informed belonging infrastructure intervention that addresses client outcomes while supporting workforce sustainability.

Questions? Contact Peggy Trosper, peggy-trosper@uiowa.edu