Working with Older Survivors of Abuse

NCALL has published an impressive multimedia toolkit, Working with Older Survivors of Abuse: A Framework for Advocates. DO NOT let the 2nd half of that title keep you from doing the deep dive into this resource–1.) there’s healthcare-specific information (although it’s briefer than I’d like); and 2.) seriously, I do not want to have to convince anyone that our colleagues in other disciplines have some wisdom to share with us. My very favorite part of all of this is the Summary Report with Captioned Videos (PDF), which provides links to video clips peppered throughout the document on discrete topics, like safety planning and mandatory reporting. There’s a lot to wade through (I haven’t finished going through the whole thing yet), but make the time. And share with your MDTs and SARTs, because there’s some community response/policy content that is worth the broader discussion. BTW, this is not just about elder abuse, but working with older survivors of many different crimes, so if you’re thinking to yourself, this doesn’t apply because we don’t do elder abuse in our program, you would be incorrect. This is a resource for any forensic clinician caring for older patients in their practice (so essentially anyone who doesn’t have a peds-specific program).