Resources

It’s impossible for even the most dedicated professional to keep track of the many resources he or she may need to consult when serving a client, preparing to educate people about elder abuse, or revising legislation. That’s why this Resources section was designed as an online clearinghouse. Here we catalog reviews, articles about, and -- in many cases -- direct links to a wide variety of resources. They are sorted by categories and subcategories and by the date they were reviewed in Adult Abuse Review (or other publication), ready to be accessed whenever you need them. Our primary divisions are:

There exists a remarkable variety of training manuals and materials on a range of domestic and institutional elder and vulnerable adult abuse topics. Finding what you need, however, can be a challenge. This ever-growing collection of reviews should help you find what you are looking for, whether that is basic public education materials, professional in-service ideas, or training in advanced investigative techniques.

All too often, what researchers learn about elder and vulnerable adult abuse never reaches the service providers who actually serve victims and their families. In this section, we try to point out the practical implications of research from a variety of disciplines. We also include research reviews and charts of study findings to help researchers build on what’s already been done.

Federal, state, local, theoretical: laws, regulations and the way people think about adult abuse all affect how, when, and what services are offered to those touched by adult abuse. Our “policy” section covers these issues, including recently enacted and pending legislation. This is also where adult protective services administrators and other key professionals will find information about studies and resources they can use to help themselves design more effective administrative structures and programs.

What can be done to help victims and perpetrators of elder and vulnerable adult abuse, and to help prevent new cases? There are lots of answers to that question. In this section, we sort those answers by the profession of the helper, the type of intervention, and the type of abuse.

What is adult abuse? How someone answers that question will depend in part on that person’s cultural background. What are the roles they believe adult children should have in regard to their parents? What does their culture teach them about asking for help? Is yelling at one another a taken-for-granted occurrence or a rare and devastating event? Because properly preventing and intervening in adult abuse requires understanding how people relate to each other, we have devoted a whole website section to this topic.

Until now, those working in the elder and vulnerable adult abuse field have learned about each others’ new projects only by chance or rumor. This section showcases ongoing demonstration projects and studies, to foster collaborations and information-sharing.

In our opinion, the World Wide Web is currently the most promising mechanism for disseminating information about elder and vulnerable adult abuse and for improving the ability of professionals and the public to help prevent abuse and respond to it appropriately when it does happen. Here are a few of our favorite links.

Sometimes Adult Abuse Review covers news of ongoing interest that doesn’t fit in any of the above categories. Such articles are archived here for easy search and retrieval. For a database of articles on elder and vulnerable adult abuse published by newspapers and on the web, go to www.WordBridges.net/elderabuse/media.