Dr Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron (University of Tasmania) has led a seminar exploring elder abuse and how government departments, communities and the private sector can work together to address this problem.
The seminar, organised by the ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre and hosted by the University of York, looked at financial abuse in particular.
Associate Professor Bartkowiak-Théron is an award-winning police educator in vulnerability and law enforcement and public health and is Head of Discipline for Policing and Emergency Management at the University of Tasmania. She is a member of the Centre’s International Advisory Board.
In the seminar, Dr Bartkowiak-Théron argued for more collaboration between different organisations in order to tackle elder financial abuse. Sharing critical data is key to tackling this abuse; however, organisations are often reluctant to do this because of privacy laws.
Dr Bartkowiak-Théron noted that in order to prevent elder abuse, especially financial abuse, more needs to be done to understand how different organisations across sectors respond to elder abuse. She argued that systems thinking might be an answer to developing and evaluating collaborative pathways. Widening the remit of what is understood as public health and identifying additional stakeholders committed to acting together as a community of practice to protect the life, assets and wellbeing of vulnerable community members is crucial.
“For decades, our governments and communities have been calling for collaborative ways to address complex socio-economic problems,” said Dr Bartkowiak-Théron.
“As part of these calls to action, the international ‘Law Enforcement and Public Health’ movement is pushing for conceptual, policy and practical frameworks for problem solving focused on vulnerable people who are at the intersection of areas of government.
“The issue of financial elder abuse lends itself well to finding frameworks that also involve the private sector, particularly the banking sector, in a way that can inform early intervention in grave cases of domestic and family violence, neglect and general abuse. However, businesses and many other organisations are not currently prioritising elder abuse. More needs to be done by organisations to increase involvement and collaboration in order to address this problem.”