Elder Abuse: Clinical, Ethical, and Legal Considerations in Social Work Practice

Donovan, Kirsten; Regehr, Cheryl

doi:10.1007/s10615-010-0269-2

Cited by 31 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(46 reference statements)

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“…Central to the practice dilemmas was the difficulty in balancing duty of care with client autonomy and self-determination. This adds to the findings of researchers such as Donovan and Regehr [8] who describe how practitioners such as social workers can feel pressured in cases of elder abuse in balancing their legal duties with their obligation to advocate for the rights of clients. These difficulties can be further complicated when there are concerns about a client's capacity to make decisions or their freedom to act without coercion from others, particularly family members [9].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…There is mounting evidence that frontline practitioners face significant challenges in working with older people experiencing abuse, particularly concerning the detection of abuse [6] and practice dilemmas around client self-determination, capacity and duty of care [7,8]. However, the nature of this challenging work and the attendant impact on practitioners are not well understood; this is important given the growing number of cases of elder abuse due to the ageing of the population [9] and the impact of working with abuse, which has been recognised in other areas, such as child protection [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Working at the frontline in cases of elder abuse: ‘It keeps me awake at night’

Cairns

Vreugdenhil

2013

Australas J Ageing

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working at the frontline in cases of elder abuse: ‘It keeps me awake at night’

Cairns

Vreugdenhil

2013

Australas J Ageing

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“…al., 2008;Donovan & Regehr, 2010;Göergen & Beaulieu, 2013). Risk assessment typologies (on which guidelines have been developed) include risks linked to characteristics of abusers and victims (for example: alcohol and drug dependency, mental health concerns, frailty) and actions that cause harm (for example: sexual violation, physical violence).…”

Section: What Denotes Harm To An Older Person?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They do acknowledge however, that harm can be defined in numerous ways that are culturally relative and subjective, and argue therefore, it can be difficult to assess. Nerenberg (2008), Kosberg, Lowenstein, Garcia, and Biggs (2003), Penhale and Parker (2008), Donovan and Regehr (2010) and Jackson and Hafemeister (2011) also canvassed notions of harm in respect of assessment. Nerenberg (2008, p. 29) identified the influence of personal judgments in decisions about harm, suggesting that assessing harm requires "getting inside the heads of abusers to discover motives, beliefs, perceptions, and intentions".…”

Section: What Denotes Harm To An Older Person?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nerenberg (2008, p. 29) identified the influence of personal judgments in decisions about harm, suggesting that assessing harm requires "getting inside the heads of abusers to discover motives, beliefs, perceptions, and intentions". Kosberg and Garcia (1997), Penhale and Parker (2008), Donovan and Regehr (2010) and Jackson and Hafemeister (2011) Göergen and Beaulieu (2010) acknowledge that harm is a complex concept. Their contribution is that they make explicit the importance of appreciating both the circumstances in which the harm occurs (including the relationships between the abuser and the abused), and the opportunistic factors that may be involved.…”

Section: What Denotes Harm To An Older Person?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A cog in the wheel or an agent of change: Knowledge use and practice with older people who are abused in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Brook¹

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Across the past three decades a growing national and international concern about elder abuse is evident in policy, research and social and health care practice. There is currently a considerable body of literature on prevalence, predictors and risk factors as well as debates about definitions, conceptualisations and appropriate legal, policy and practice responses. There is more limited research on how the conceptualisations of ageing and elder abuse shape professional practice. Knowledge use and social work practice in elder abuse in the context of Aotearoa/New Zealand is the focus of this thesis.This thesis presents a qualitative exploratory study of elder abuse practice as reported by twenty social workers engaged in frontline elder abuse work throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand. The purposive sample of social workers practised in a variety of settings and were situated in different geographic locations across the country. The primary focus of this study is to explore how elder abuse is understood, how cases of In individual semi-structured interviews, participants were asked to describe their understandings of elder abuse, to explore the knowledge they use to inform these understandings, and to give details about what actions they take when encountering situations of abuse.An interpretative, social constructionist approach to this research was taken. All twenty accounts of practice were analysed thematically. This provided a means by which the processes of, and influences on, meaning, knowledge use and response-making could be scrutinised, and an understanding of elder abuse practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand could be discerned.The findings indicate that the term 'elder abuse' is universally recognised and articulated in practice, but when explored in depth, understandings about what constitutes elder abuse varied, were dependent on the knowledge individual social ii | P a g e workers brought to their practice, and on the context in which the practice occurred. This knowledge was not always explicitly used and consequently was often left unscrutinised. The use of tacit knowledge was seen to facilitate the establishment of patterns of practice that have become customary and are left unchallenged.The influence of the context on what could or could not be done to respond to elder abuse was acknowledged by many of these social workers. Beyond the immediate resource constraints that were recognised as limiting their options to address abuse, the significance of the socio-economic-historic-cultural-political context and how this informed and shaped social work practice (and the experiences of older people) were not readily identified by most. When these factors were noted, they were largely considered to be insurmountable.The findings from this study highlight that a narrow approach is taken by most of the social workers in this study when working with older people who are abused. There is little demonstrated understanding the socio/political context in which the abuse occurs, and the systemic issues that may co...

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