Reflections on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

By Renée Carrico, Pro Bono and Elder Justice Coordinator

June 15, we marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD).  The year’s theme was Lifting up the Voices of Older Survivors. NVRDC endeavors to provide outreach and education throughout the year, but WEAAD allowed us to highlight the issue, assess how far we’ve come in combating elder abuse, and where we need to focus in the year to come.  The new year brought a new virus.  As the novel corona virus spread through communities and long-term care facilities across the country, we saw some disappointing ageist rhetoric about the value of older adults and the expendability of their lives to save the economy. We have also seen how racism has impacted older adults from attacks on Asian Americans to the higher mortality rates of older American minority groups as a result of systemic racism.  And we know there is a correlation between ageism and abuse.

Ageism is nothing new, but the pandemic has highlighted just how much harder we need to work to change the negative attitudes about aging. We need to break the imagined link between economic output and worthiness in society.  How people age is quite different from person to person. Many of us will take care of our children’s children, work longer, and live longer.  After retirement we are still consumers, we take on other work, we volunteer more, travel, and so much more.  To devalue the aging is to devalue ourselves and stifles our ability to end elder abuse.

One way to reduce elder abuse is to combat ageist assumptions about victims. The National Clearinghouse on Abuse Later in Life (NCALL), has put together a video series at liftingupvoices.net  to provide a platform for  survivors to share their stories. “Centering the voices of older survivors is a critical way that programs and communities can provide support based on needs identified directly from older adults.”  The videos feature older survivors who have experienced one or more forms of abuse including intimate partner violence, financial exploitation, and scams, sexual assault/abuse or stalking. There is a discussion guide for each video. These topics can be difficult to listen to, so it is important to take time to reflect on the content and consider talking to someone or practice other self-care if you have an unexpected emotional response.  But by Lifting up the Voices of Older Survivors we honor them, share their resilience, and find new ways forward.