Friday is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day and Cochrane will be fully launching its Community Led Elder Abuse Response (CLEAR) after refining a multi-agency response protocol that is custom made for Cochrane and surrounding area.

The event is being staged tomorrow, Friday, June 15 at the Legion starting at 10:30 a.m. A presentation of "It’s Not Right!" neighbours, families and friends bystander program follows opening comments. There's a free barbecue around noon and an awareness walk starts at 1 p.m.

Banff-Cochrane MLA Cam Westhead will be speaking on the provincewide strategy to battle elder abuse. Other participants include Mayor Jeff Genung, RCMP Inspector Lauren Weare and members of the CLEAR team.

People are encouraged to wear purple, the colour adopted worldwide to represent support for victims of elder abuse.

For Sharon Moore, elder abuse prevention facilitator, and Annemarie Tocher, coordinator of Western Rocky View Family and Community Resource Centre, what has been created is a very specific response protocol for Cochrane and area to deal with this complicated issue.

Elder abuse takes on many forms: financial, psychological or emotional, physical, sexual, neglect and medication. Because of its many faces, a highly successful program requires a coordinated and collaborative response by multiple disciplines and agencies. It also needs the community to be fully engaged.

"This won't be successful if the whole community isn't involved and be our the eyes and ears," says Moore.

"We are all responsible and it's devastating that seniors are abused in our community. We all have the ability to do something about it."

Elder abuse does exist in Cochrane and on the day prior to this interview alone, three cases were reported.

The full extent of elder abuse in Alberta is not fully known but based on studies, four to eight per cent of seniors are abused and that amounts to up to 44,000 Albertans.

"It's Not Right" offers bystander training on identifying the signs and how to approach a person you believe is being subjected to abuse.

You don't have to interfere, but you can share your concern with the person, explains Moore.

"It opens the door for support and acknowledgement that what's happening is not right."

"So It's giving that empowerment to older adults to be able to go some place that can respond, that can do something, and you don't need to hide it."

That's where CLEAR kicks in. A coordinator has been hired with a two-year grant to help connect elders with the appropriate agency and, in most cases, several agencies

Partners in CLEAR have received training in recognizing and dealing with elder abuse. Tocher uses the example of a home care worker.

"When you set up a system like this, it becomes much clearer why home care has a really important role and what the perimeters of that are. When they understand elder abuse they understand those home care related issues, those physical challenges, those medical things, in a context that is different than they might have before."

"Before this, people were working in isolation, might have seen it, might have been uncomfortable and didn't know what to call it because they didn't have the training or the understanding of it.

It also opens the door to the potential of developing an equally coordinated domestic violence response.

"Sharon has really put us on the map provincially as a community around the coordination and collaboration type of work," says Tocher.  "My hope is we can leverage the success of this project into dollars for coordination for domestic violence as well."

"It has been really very important to us to address this issue but as a broader community it really elevates our understanding of coordination and collaboration and how things can work."

CLEAR is just the beginning of the response for what is a rapidly growing senior population in Cochrane. Should funding become available, they want to expand the educational and awareness components

Here are three key contact numbers to remember:

Community-Led Elder Abuse Response – 403-705-3520

Elder Abuse Resource Line (24 hour) – 403-705-3250

In case of emergency and immediate danger, please call 9-1-1.

 

See more here.