\u201cThey can be dependent on people who both care for them and cause them harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people fear being put in an aged-care facility if they disclose that a carer isn\u2019t doing a good job, and there\u2019s shame and stigma about what\u2019s happening to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The tool, a six-page form, would include a section to assess the risk posed by a person suspected of causing harm, as well as a section focused on the older person who may be suffering abuse or neglect.<\/p>\n
Types of abuse covered in the tool include psychological, financial, physical, sexual, cultural and spiritual.<\/p>\n
A $95,000 grant from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) funded the tool\u2019s development.<\/p>\n
Financial struggles, attitude and relationship problems, aggression, a history of drug and alcohol abuse or violence, and a history of experiencing abuse themselves have all been identified as risk factors for a potential abuser.<\/p>\n
\u201cPractitioners can rank the risk the person is experiencing within each category and can also write notes describing the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s also a section looking at what the person using harm needs \u2013 such as more breaks or getting extra help at home.” <\/p>\n
Peri said a tool like this does not exist, which makes it \u201curgently needed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Abuse of older people is happening more frequently, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope the tool will support workers in the field by offering more objective methods of measuring the risk of abuse for older people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experienced staff often have a \u201cgut feeling\u201d that abuse or neglect is happening, but have no way to objectively detect or quantify it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s likely to be particularly useful for junior social workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tool has been finished but needs to be verified.<\/p>\n
It will be trialled by practitioners to test its effectiveness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are applying for funding for the validation process and for a training kit that will be used with the risk assessment tool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elder abuse organisations in Canada are interested in trialling the tool, Peri said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey can be dependent on people who both care for them and cause them harm. \u201cSome people fear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,23070,51,1558,31510,2732,45232,134,5838,117,111,43,139,69,5652,15412,61,6305,1528,1455,4478],"class_list":{"0":"post-361861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-assessment","10":"tag-auckland","11":"tag-been","12":"tag-detect","13":"tag-developed","14":"tag-elder","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-help","17":"tag-new","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-signs","23":"tag-spot","24":"tag-to","25":"tag-tool","26":"tag-university","27":"tag-warning","28":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}