By Shawna Reeves, MSW, Director of Elder Abuse Prevention at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco and Cherie Bourlard, Deputy District Attorney with the County of Santa Clara
Shawna Reeves, MSW, is director of elder abuse prevention at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco. Previously, she was director of financial education and advocacy at Council on Aging Silicon Valley. Shawna has published numerous articles on elder financial abuse and has presented throughout the country on consumer issues and innovative ways to prevent elder financial abuse. Shawna received her MSW from Smith College School for Social Work.
Cherie Bourlard is a Deputy District Attorney with the County of Santa Clara. She has been a prosecutor for over 31 years. She has prosecuted cases including Narcotics, Domestic Violence, Stalking, Workplace Violence, Rape, Auto Theft and Career Criminals. For the past 11 years she has been assigned to prosecute Financial Abuse committed against Elders and Dependent Adults. While assigned to the D.A.’s Office Elder Fraud Unit she has been successful in recovering over 10 million dollars in assets for her victims of financial abuse.
She is a recipient of the Certificate of Appreciation Award from the Victim Support Network of Santa Clara County and of the Santa Clara County Employee Excellence Award. Together as a member of the County’s Financial Abuse Specialist Time (F.A.S.T.) she was presented an Outstanding Service Award from Crime-Stoppers. Also, she holds in high esteem two Challenge Coins she received from her boss, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, following a successful prosecution and full recovery of money from of a banker who stole over 1 million dollars from a very elderly client, and in swaying a bank to reimburse an elderly victim for stolen checks, covering a loss of over $200,000.
On a personal level, she loves traveling to new destinations.