In some communities, professionals and public members interested in elder abuse issues have formed local or statewide groups to work on issues. These groups typically focus on public awareness, systems change, policy and advocacy, and education. These groups may also have a meeting for case review as one of their objectives, but not always. These coalitions may be staffed with someone from a public or non-profit agency, or they may be totally volunteer-based.
Contact the NCEA for information on local elder justice coalitions in the United States
The National Center on Elder Abuse is interested in identifying coalitions, consortia and task forces throughout the US. The goal is to link coalitions to each other so that they can learn from another, share information, and build a network of grassroots organizations interested in elder abuse.
The NCEA collects and maintains a list of local coalitions. To be included, please email us and include your coalition name, contact person, address, city, state and zip, phone, email, website (if applicable), and purpose of the coalition.
From 2007–2010, the NCEA awarded 42 Elder Justice Local Network Development Mini-Grants of $10,000 to assist communities in developing multidisciplinary approaches to address elder abuse. To read descriptions of the mini-grant projects, please click on the following links:
An evaluation of the NCEA community coalition projects was conducted in 2011. Community collaborations were found to be different from multidisciplinary teams in that they were more global in nature and typically involved more people. As such, their primary goal was informational in nature: to identify service gaps and update members about new services, resources, and legislation, to advocate for needed change, to carry out training events, and to keep members up to date. The most common members of the collaborations were aging service providers, police, Adult Protective Services, elder law attorneys, nurses, personnel from financial institutions, retired professionals, and domestic violence advocates. Although mostly informal in structure, it appears that, for sustainability and continued success, it will be important to incorporate formal mechanisms for group work, including keeping minutes, position descriptions, linkages with other collaborations, tangible products, and outcomes related to prevention and intervention of elder abuse.1
Footnotes
1. Summary excerpt from "A National Examination of Elder Justice Community Collaborations" prepared for the NCEA by The National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse under grant # 90-AM-3145. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Therefore, points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent official Administration on Aging or DHHS policy.