No abstract

Elder abuse is a global systemic problem in which one or more traumatic or stressful life experiences directly affect older adults, their families, and communities. Despite its devastating impact, the understanding of-and response to-elder abuse has rarely been explored through a trauma-informed lens. Despite the prevalence of traumatic and stressful life experiences, research and practice are just beginning to target the intersection of elder abuse and life course trauma. This article demonstrates how knowledge about the causes, consequences, and responses to elder abuse can be integrated with the principles of trauma-informed care to improve agency and community responses to preventing or intervening with elder abuse and neglect. In order to address the ongoing problems with detection and treatment of elder abuse, we assert that instilling trauma and elder abuse informed care in organizational services and policies forms a synergistic alliance and would address many of these concerns.

The mission of Adult Protective Services (APS) is to protect older and vulnerable adults from abuse, neglect, and exploitation. The complexity of APS cases and the potential for life-changing interventions point to the need for research that examines and evaluates APS practices. A literature review identified 50 studies published during a 16-year period that used APS agencies, clients, data, or resources to test hypotheses regarding elder abuse. The analysis revealed promising efforts toward knowledge development about elder mistreatment and self-neglect. This article provides an overview of salient findings, notes the scarcity of studies that analyze the effectiveness of APS, and highlights the need for additional research. Lessons learned are described, and APS practitioners and researchers are urged to work collaboratively to develop key practice-related questions about APS processes and outcomes that can be tested with appropriate research methodologies.

This study compared 2 approaches to the assessment of Adult Protective Services (APS) cases. Using administrative data from 869 cases in 2 counties in Maryland, the differences between a nurse/social worker team and a lone social worker in case disposition, risk reduction, recidivism, and cost effectiveness were examined. Lone social workers were significantly more likely to confirm financial exploitation, physical abuse, and neglect by others; while the team approach resulted in significantly greater risk reduction. No differences were observed in relation to recidivism, self-neglect and cost savings. Given limited resources, research that examines optimal staffing patterns in APS agencies is warranted.

Infusion of aging content into the baccalaureate social work curriculum has received increased consideration recently as a lack of student preparation to work with older adults and rising numbers of this population's need has come to light. Student resistance to working with this population has been well documented. Learning activities on an undergraduate level must meet multiple curricular goals such as teaching assessment skills across the life span. A qualitative content analysis of student interview assignments highlighted themes related to required exposure to seniors. Emergent themes included student inexperience, use of stereotypes of older adults, fear of aging, increased comfort in discussing sensitive or taboo topics, and self-discovery and realization of competence. Requiring interviews with older adults had positive outcomes for the small student sample studied. Implications for future social work education, research, and practice are discussed.