A new awareness campaign aims to address the issue of elder abuse in St. Albert.
Called Building a Safety Net of Care, the new campaign includes a safety calendar and a series of newspaper ads that focus on topics like safety tips, transportation education, banking security and legal advice. The calendar is free for seniors and is now available at select locations around the city.
The campaign is the work of the St. Albert Seniors’ Working Group, which brings several agencies to the same table for the betterment of the city’s elderly population. It’s been a few years now since the group identified four priorities in a three-year plan, which included figuring out how to stop elder abuse.
Elder abuse is one of those issues that needs to be talked about in order for there to be a strong understanding of its impact in the community, said Tara Rodrique, the outreach co-ordinator at the St. Albert Senior Citizens’ Club, one of the groups that participates in the working group.
“I would say that we don’t hear about a lot of the elder abuse cases. Our goal is to make people more aware of your neighbours, your friends, your family … when things just aren’t adding up right,” Rodrique said.
“It would be nice if we could have every senior in St. Albert to have one of these calendars hanging on their wall,” she added.
It’s estimated that approximately 23,000 seniors across the province are experiencing one or more forms of abuse, according to the Alberta Elder Abuse Awareness Network’s website at www.albertaelderabuse.ca. Emotional abuse is reported most frequently, followed by financial abuse and then physical and psychological. Abuse takes many forms so awareness and attention are crucial for any mistreatment to even be noticed, let alone reported.
Seniors sometimes don’t feel empowered to bring their problems forward, Rodrique said, adding that the issue of abuse needs to become more of a public discussion, especially as the population ages.
The province projects that Alberta’s senior population will increase 60 to 70 per cent in the 15 years leading up to 2016, while the general population will only grow by 30 per cent.
For more information on Building a Safety Net of Care, members of the public can contact either Rodrique at the seniors’ club (780-459-0433 or www.stalbertseniorsclub.org) or Doreen Slessor at St. Albert Stop Abuse in Families (780-460-2195 or www.stopabuse.ca).
For more information on the St. Albert Seniors’ Working Group, please visit www.stalbert.ca/st-albert-seniors-working-group.
