PA Cooperative Health Centre Establishes Adult Support Worker to Focus on Issues of Elder Abuse

In 1993 The Cooperative Health Centre along with a number of community partners engaged in an initiative to raise awareness and work towards decreasing the prevalence of family violence through the employment of community developers and coordinators.

Three active committees made up of volunteers were formed to address the issues related to children, spousal abuse and the elderly with an overall attempt to raise awareness of issues in each of these groups and enhance coordination. The committees were:

–           Ending Violence Against Women

–           Elderly Abuse Prevention Committee

–           Child and Youth

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For several years the Prince Albert Co-operative Health Centre has taken a responsibility to provide support, resources and to lead the fight against violence in the community. Through the years, as awareness has grown, many organizations now successfully offer a wealth of resources and bring community members and service providers together to work toward a violence free community. 

Some of these are: Catholic Family Services, “Setting the Stage” , Womens Shelter, Family Futures, Victim Services, Mobile Crisis and the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region to name a few. 

The Cooperative Health Centre will continue to pursue our vision of a violence free community.

One of the key initiatives of Community Against Family Violence was the establishment of the Elderly Abuse Prevention Committee in 2003 which lead to a formal research project; “The Aging Silent: Constructing a Protocol to Detect, Prevent and Respond to Elderly Abuse in Prince Albert and a “Guide for Stakeholders” conducted by Dr. Chad Nilson, Living Skies Centre for Social Inquiry. 

One of the recommendations of this project was the identified need to create Adult Support worker positions focusing on elderly abuse.

Since 2007 there were many attempts to secure funding for this position which were unsuccessful. The Prince Albert Cooperative Health Centre has reviewed the growth of the community in addressing violence and gaps in services. In response a decision was made to reallocate resources to the establishment of an Adult Support Worker- Elder Abuse, which will work in collaboration and be an asset to the other support programs provided at the Health Centre.

The focus of this position will be to respond “to calls of elderly abuse, assist family members and other professionals remove the senior from harm’s way, and insure that a long lasting plan is in place so that the senior can live a life free of elderly abuse.” (1)

The Co-operative Health Centre plans to continue to partner with other agencies and support community awareness events which include:

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We acknowledge the leadership provided by Sandy Pitzel who coordinated Community Against Family Violence over the last ten years. We want to thank the staff, volunteers and community for their support to increase peace in our community. We trust that the current community development will continue through many agencies and partnerships in Prince Albert.

(1)  “The Aging Silent: Constructing a Protocol to Detect, Prevent and Respond to Elder Abuse in Prince Albert and a “guide for Stakeholders” Dr Chad Nilson, M.A,M.S, B.S, DIP. Elder Abuse Researcher, Living Skies Centre for Social Inquiry