The Jasper Community Team Society was among 25 community organizations across the province that recently received provincial funding to help address and prevent elder abuse.
On June 2, the Jasper Community Team learned it was the recipient of a $30,000 grant to help bolster the team’s efforts to tackle elder abuse in the community.
“We’ll be using the money to make our community network stronger and more informed about this particular issue so we are able to respond more effectively,” said Liz Olsen,
team coordinator for the Jasper Community Team Society.
The money will be primarily used to strengthen the seniors collaborative action team, which works with representatives from various agencies in town as well as members of the community to identify issues and trends affecting seniors and then work together to solve them.
In this case, the money will be used to engage key stakeholders, such as the Jasper Seniors Society and Jasper Victim Services, to help identify gaps and challenges related to identifying, preventing and providing services for elder abuse in Jasper.
“It’s about being proactive.” said Kathleen Waxer, director of Community and Family Services.
“It’s about having conversations and meaningful dialogue and building trust with the people at the table so when problems do arise everything is in place to work together.”
According to Lori Sigurdson, the minister of seniors and housing, 8.9 per cent of Alberta’s senior population suffers from some form of elder abuse, whether its financial, emotional or physical abuse. Nationally, 8.2 per cent of the population suffers from elder abuse.
“I would say it’s also under reported because often times seniors may not want to come forward, sometimes the abuse is at the hands of friends or their family and they have some shame in that,” said Sigurdson.
“This grant is to help increase awareness and education regarding this happening in the community and to help them see those telltale signs when a senior might be vulnerable,” she said, such as unexplained bruises, social withdrawal, missing medication or unexplained financial transactions.
The province promised to invest $1.2 million to help address and prevent elder abuse. The money given to Jasper must be spent by March 31, 2017.
Coincidentally, news about the financial support for seniors came nearly two weeks after a group of seniors in Jasper voiced their concern about the lack of resources available for them in town. Their biggest concern was the fact that seniors are the only age group in town without a dedicated outreach worker.
“There isn’t government funding in Alberta for community based services for the vulnerable population of seniors,” said Waxer, explaining every outreach worker’s salary is paid for by government grants while the municipality pays for the space it uses and its utilities.
Despite not having a seniors outreach worker, she emphasized that Community Outreach Services never turns anyone away.
“There’s an absolute commitment to provide service to seniors,” said Waxer. “Any senior that comes through the door, and there are multiple seniors that use outreach, will be taken care of.”
While Jasper might not have a seniors outreach worker that hasn’t always been the case.
For a brief period between May 2010 and December 2011, Alberta Health launched a pilot project for a seniors outreach worker.
“Their initial intent was to do a year, but I told them a year pilot project would be a complete waste of money,” explained Waxer.
“Community development requires building trust in the community, building trust with the other agencies and trust with the public, that alone would be a huge accomplishment in a year before you actually do anything.”
As a result Alberta Health agreed to extend the pilot project for at least three years, but 18 months into the pilot project, Alberta Health abruptly pulled the plug leaving Jasper’s Community Outreach Services looking for answers.
“I don’t understand what happened. It was just decided that it was over,” said Waxer.
“To a large degree it was a devastating blow because I felt in many ways we had duped the seniors. I wouldn’t have gone into it on an 18-month term because I didn’t feel that it was fair to the seniors.”
Since then Waxer said she has been very reluctant to apply for other short-term grants that could potentially lead to a seniors outreach worker.
“From my perspective I don’t want to let the seniors down again by doing something on a short-term basis, but I’m persistently going after government to take what they got from that study and recognize it as being valuable,” said Waxer.
“I have a really strong belief that doing things well and building the trust is critical and throwing something together for a period of time and then withdrawing because funding runs dry, I don’t think is in anyone’s best interest.”
According to Olsen, the Jasper Community and Family Services Board took a resolution to a meeting in the fall with representatives from the Family and Community Support Services Association of Alberta to advocate the provincial government to commit funding to community support services for seniors.
Citing the province’s aging population policy framework, the resolution emphasized that providing seniors with services in their own communities is economically prudent because it prolongs independence, increases socialization and decreases issues such as elder abuse, ultimately reducing the dependence on homecare and the financial strain on the healthcare system.
“Seniors for some reason are the only life-stage population housed within Alberta Health, all the others are dealt with through Alberta Human Services,” said Olsen.
For Waxer, that in itself says enough about the issue.
“People are perceived as only a health issue as opposed to a social issue,” said Waxer.
“The government of Alberta invests in vulnerable populations, whether it be young families through Parent Link, or through services for youth and teens, people with brain injuries, people with development delays–any type of vulnerability–but there is no investment for the vulnerabilities for seniors at the community level,” said Waxer.
During a meeting in September with the assistant deputy minister for seniors she floated the idea of creating an Elder Link program similar to Parent Link. The idea was well received, but to date nothing further has happened.
The minister of seniors and housing was unavailable for a follow up interview.
The next senior and adult collaborative action team meeting is July 20 at 1 p.m. in the Community Outreach Services boardroom, located at 627 Patricia St.
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
