Survey Report: Problems Facing State Adult Protective Services Programs and the Resources Needed to Resolve Them
(report review)

National Center on Elder Abuse
National Association of Adult Protective Services Administrators
January 2003

Reviewed by Loree Cook-Daniels

The two greatest barriers to providing adequate adult protective services are insufficient funding and inadequate staffing, according to a 2001 survey of 42 state Adult Protective Services administrators. What's most needed to solve these problems is increased state and federal funding and improvement of staff training and development.

So concludes the report of the National Association of Adult Protective Services Administrators (NAAPSA), "Survey Report: Problems Facing State Adult Protective Services Programs and the Resources Needed to Resolve Them," published in January 2003 by the National Center on Elder Abuse. The study, part of NCEA's Baseline Study of States' APS Programs, was conducted by telephone in October and November, 2001. Respondents were asked two questions:

• As a state APS administrator, what do you see as the most significant problems facing the field of Adult Protective Services at this time?
• As a state APS administrator, what assistance do you need to improve protective services to vulnerable adults?

Because the questions were so open-ended, responses were categorized after the fact. Respondents were also not prompted to think in any particular direction (as happens with surveys that provide possible responses), which could mean that some categories would have had a higher response rate if the respondent had actually been asked about a particular factor, such as the adequacy of community-based supportive services.

Editor's Note: Due to a mysterious software problem, we cannot make the HTML versions of these charts clearer. To see a more readable version of the charts, go to the .pdf version (http://www.wordbridges.net/elderabuse/aar/vol2issue2/v2i2-feb2003.pdf) of the February 2003 AAR, pages 6 and 20.

The report itself, a concise nine pages long, provides a little more detail on the responses under each category. Some of these comments could easily be used, for example, in lobbying efforts on behalf of the Elder Justice Act (see article elsewhere in this edition). When discussing the need for public education, for instance, one state noted that its legislators had questioned the right of a state agency to intervene in domestic situations (p. 4). Another state suggested that a particular strategy that might be helpful is to provide states with funding to bring in national experts for training APS staff, since most states do not allow workers to travel outside the state to national gatherings to receive such specialized training.

The report is available for downloading at www.elderabusecenter.org/publication/NAAPSA7.pdf/. A printed copy can also be ordered from:
c/o Marilyn Whalen
APS Program Director
Adult Protective Services
Tennessee Department of Human Services
Citizens Plaza Building, 14th Floor
400 Deaderick Street
Nashville, TN 37248-9700
(615) 313-4784 (voice)
(615) 741-4165 (fax)