Editorial
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14668203200400014 |
| Pages | 2-3 |
| Published date | 01 November 2004 |
| Date | 01 November 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
2© Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 6 Issue 3 • November 2004
Editorial
Two new reports have recently been
published by Action on Elder Abuse, Better
Government for Older People and Help the
Aged (see references).
These reports emphasise the need for
continuing concern about elder abuse and the
development of action to combat it. The first
report analyses 6,867 calls to the Action on
Elder Abuse helpline (Action on Elder
Abuse/Help the Aged, 2004), while the
second argues that a citizenship approach to
elder abuse, linked to more strategic
partnerships in service provision, may help to
promote the protection of vulnerable adults
from its marginalised status (Action on Elder
Abuse/Better Government for Older People,
2004). This year as a whole has seen a
number of developments concerning elder
abuse in particular, beginning with the Health
Select Committee Hearing, which took place
in December 2003 and January 2004. Elder
abuse is the main focus for this issue of the
journal, presenting a number of papers from
Europe about the subject.
Detection tools are commonly used in
practice in North America, but little interest
has been shown in their utilisation in the UK.
Carmen Touza’s paper, written in Spain,
reports on attempts to validate a scale for
detecting domestic abuse and self-neglect that
can be utilised in practice settings by social
workers.
Thomas Goergen’s paper reports on the
findings of a multi-method study of
institutional abuse in Germany. Although
restricted to the federal state of Hesse,
Goergen argues that the findings might be
generalisable to Germany. The paper reports
significant numbers of nursing staff admitting
in interviews that they behaved either
abusively or neglectfully. Further, Goergen
argues that most cases of abuse go unnoticed
or unreported to management or home
directors.
Olaug Juklestad’s paper describes the work
of the elder protective services in Norway.
The Norwegian experience suggests that
mandatory reporting is not a necessary
prerequisite for effective adult protective
services. Indeed efficient community services
that recognise their responsibility for
protective services linked to effective
information and education appear to have
made significant progress in adult protective
resources in Norway.
Numerous documentaries have recently
reported on the phenomenon of adult
protection, and several more television
programmes are planned for the future.
Margaret Flynn, however, offers a personal
perspective from the position of a family
member discovering that her brother had,
through a series of disastrous events, been
placed in an unregistered, abusive service.
The final paper in this issue is an
organisational profile and describes the work
of ALMA France, a pressure group formed in
1994 with objectives to:
■develop a national elder abuse helpline
network
■support and protect the isolated, excluded
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