DAWN JOOSTEN is a licensed clinical social worker and has worked as a medical social worker for Providence Health Services in the South Bay since 2001. She specializes in working with older and disabled adults with chronic and life threatening illnesses. She has worked in acute, subacute, transitional, skilled nursing and palliative care settings. For the past 10 years she has been the lead social worker for Providence Health Services Home Health in Torrance. Her specialties include crisis intervention, brief therapy, grief and bereavement, and long-term care planning.

Previously, Joosten was the lead lecturer of teaching fellows at the University of California, Los Angeles, for the Frontiers in Human Aging general education cluster, an interdisciplinary course emphasizing biological, social, psychological, policy and ethical perspectives on human aging. She was the service learning coordinator for the Frontiers in Human Aging course and arranged the civic engagement placements of more than 160 students at about 20 community partner agencies serving older adults in Los Angeles County. Her additional teaching experience includes an elective course Death & Dying at the University of California, Los Angeles; Social Welfare Policy at California State University, Northridge; and Research Methods at California State University, Long Beach.

She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and Gerontological Society of America