Video series highlights elder abuse

Journalist Ellen Fanning has collaborated with the Seniors Rights Service to produce 18 videos featuring experts including former High Court judge Justice Michael Kirby sharing their knowledge on a wide range of issues around elder abuse.

Journalist Ellen Fanning has collaborated with the Seniors Rights Service to produce 18 videos featuring experts including former High Court judge Justice Michael Kirby sharing their knowledge on a wide range of issues around elder abuse.

The videos cover a range of topics including sexual abuse, banking and financial abuse, older LGBTI people, intergenerational trauma among older indigenous Australians, CALD communities and ageism.

They are accompanied by downloadable PDFs providing relevant agencies, phone numbers and suggestions and links for further reading, providing a valuable resource for community workers, lawyers, police, community educators and carers at a time when standards of care towards the elderly are firmly in the spotlight.

In his video about the vulnerability of older LBGTI people, Justice Kirby says many in the LGBTI community have spent a lifetime internalising a lack of worth.

“As they get older they have the disadvantage that they don’t have the same family arrangements, they’ve not been given the same rights to marriage and relationship recognition, they’ve had to live in isolation and silence about their relationships and therefore they internalise the feeling of less worth,” Justice Kirby says.

“You’ve got to somehow  have people in the aged care help area that will be aware of this particular problem and will be striving to overcome it.”

The initiative arose from the National Elder Abuse Conference held in February, which gave Fanning access to other leading experts including Age Discrimination Commissioner Dr Kay Patterson, and Australian Banking Association CEO and former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.

A SRS representative will be travelling around NSW to promote the resources to communities and professional bodies.

These kits are freely available to view and download here.

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Tags: community-care-review-slider, elder-abuse, lgbti, michael-kirby, Seniors Rights Service,

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