Training Resource Inventory
(resource review)

By National Center on Elder Abuse
National Association of State Units on Aging
2002

Reviewed by Loree Cook-Daniels

Training. Adult Protective Services workers need it. Law enforcement officials need it. Health care professionals need it. Prosecutors, meals on wheels volunteers, long-distance caregivers...the list of those who want or need training on how to identify, intervene in, and prevent instances of vulnerable adult abuse is long.

To help bridge the gap between those who have training curricula and other materials and those who would like to see those materials, the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) has published "Training Resource Inventory 2002," a listing of 58 elder abuse training manuals, videos, and PowerPoint presentations created between 1995 and 2002. It is available for downloading at http://www.elderabusecenter.org/publication/ncea_training_res_inventory.pdf/.

Although the Inventory's introduction says the project grew out of the first National Policy Summit Meeting on Elder Abuse [sic] in December 2001, the Administration on Aging actually first funded the project in 1998. Originally the intent was to compile a comprehensive list of available training materials, then select a category or two (probably by intended audience), obtain the materials, and have a panel of judges determine which curricula were the best. This list of "best practices" would then be more widely disseminated and made available through the Clearinghouse on Abuse and Neglect of the Elderly (CANE) and listed on the NCEA website so that trainers could use or build upon the materials that seemed to be best organized and presented. It is not clear if NCEA still intends to fulfill this part of its contracted work; the introduction to the document, which was actually published in February 2003, says, "Best practices have not yet been evaluated, but we intend to move in this direction."

The Introduction also says that new additions and updates to the Inventory will be posted online and directs people to a "short form online at www.elderabusecenter.org, which is very easy to fill out." This form is actually an Adobe Acrobat file (which means it cannot be filled out online) and is quite buried within the site; its current URL is www.elderabusecenter.org/whatnew/survey.pdf/. The update form is not included in the printed version of the document. It is also not clear how any such submitted updates will be posted; the document is currently only linked to the publications list and is also in Adobe Acrobat form, which is difficult to modify.

The document itself has several indexes. NCEA groups the training materials by category:

• Abuse (Emotional, Physical, Sexual)
• Adult Protective Services Training
• Alcohol, Drug Abuse -- Perpetrators
• Coalition Building, Collaboration, Community Outreach
• Domestic Abuse, Battered Women
• Financial Exploitation
• Long Term Care
• Mandatory Reporting, Medical Assessment
• Mental Health
• Prosecution, Law Enforcement
• Public Education
• Sentinels
• Suicide

A page of "primary target audiences" divides 40 professional groups into six categories: aging network; health/mental health; sentinels; adult protective services; law; and general public. However, these categories are never used again in the document -- indeed, the names a particular audience goes by differ from item to item -- so it's not clear for what purpose this page is to be used.

Another potentially useful index is "Training Resources by State," which lists the source of the material, its name, and its page number. Unfortunately, like the Table of Contents, this index is not accurate, at least for the version of the document NCEA has on its website. Apparently an unusual font was used by the publication's designer, and the "translation" of the publication to the web resulted in a font substitution that led to strange column, word, and page breaks that ended up throwing all of the page numbering out of whack. Users looking for a specific training item will therefore have to guess on which page it'll actually be found.

Unfortunately, the document does not lend itself to searching for, say, all materials that are for "advanced" audiences, designed for health care providers, or that have a PowerPoint component. To find such specifics, users will have to manually page through every entry. Even looking at the document online won't help you; NCEA apparently did not choose to link the document to its search engine, so you won't find what you're looking for that way.

When you do find the item you're looking for, the listing should give you:

• The audience experience level (basic, intermediate, or advanced) the creators believe it's most appropriately geared to;
• Suggested audiences (as defined by the creators);
• Time needed for the training (although this data is missing from many entries);
• A very short description of what's included in the training packet (example: "Handouts, slides, overheads, video, magnet");
• Topics the training covers;
• Availability/price; and
• Notes/comments.

Unfortunately, nearly every entry says about its availability, "To make inquiry, contact...." This means each user must contact the originating agency to see if that agency will make copies available to others, and under what circumstances. Many of the packages that include one or more videos do not specify what these videos are, or even if they were produced by the agency listing them as part of the package.

There are some gems here. "Stopping Abuse in the Family...What Can Faith Communities Do?", for instance, apparently addresses a common victim concern with whether he or she has been abandoned by God, and can be presented either as a lecture or a role play. "Working with Abusers and Abuser Chemical Dependency" consists of two binders and a video designed specifically for adult protective services workers. There is also an advanced, 1-day training package for health professionals on elder abuse medical and forensic issues.

Unfortunately, if you do training on elder abuse, you probably need to go through the NCEA Training Resource Inventory, simply because there isn't anything more comprehensive (although the Clearinghouse on Abuse and Neglect of the Elderly, an NCEA "partner," does list some curricula that aren't in the Inventory). Nevertheless, this is not the comprehensive and user-friendly compendium of training materials the field needs and deserves. For that, apparently, we'll have to wait even longer.