Everyone knows about MLK Day, Earth Day, Veterans Day but who has heard about World Elder Abuse Awareness Day? It is estimated that one in 10 older adults is a victim of abuse and over the past years even more seniors have fallen victim to fraud scams.
Geropsychologist Dr. Sheri Gibson and Long Term Care Ombudsman Lori McGinnis have supported seniors through terrible tragedies, and they still continue to do the good work they do. Hear how their work is putting elder abuse into the rearview mirror for so many. This International day is acknowledged on June 15.
Pikes Peak Elder Justice Center
Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country. We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude – whether you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer.
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Transcript
MELISSA MARTS:
Everyone knows Martin Luther King Day, Earth Day, Veterans Day. But who has heard of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day? Well, we have. And it turns out that this international day, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, is acknowledged on June 15th.
And on today’s episode, Dr. Sherri Gibson and Long Term Care Ombudsman Lori McGinnis will tell us, unfortunately, some sad stories of abuse, fraud, and neglect. But, more importantly, end on the high note of resources that are making elder abuse slip away in our rearview mirror.
VOICEOVER:
This is Peak Community, Studio 809 Podcast.
MARTS:
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, listeners of Aging with Altitude. Glad to have you back listening with us. And I have Rhonda Wray, the Managing Editor with Beacon Senior News, here with me in the studio, to share a little bit of what people can find in the June edition of the Beacon Senior News.
But first, actually, I’d like to say happy birthday to Rhonda.
RHONDA WRAY:
MARTS:
Yeah.
WRAY:
Thank you.
MARTS:
Happy birthday, Rhonda. She shared earlier that she just had a birthday, and it was wonderful, all kinds of good food. So anyway, happy birthday. And all right, back to the work.
What’s happening with Beacon Senior News?
WRAY:
Pickleball, Portugal, and paying it forward in friendship. Now, the last was a stretch, but I had to have a little alliteration here.
MARTS:
Okay.
WRAY:
Pickleball is always hopping, and this article is no exception. You start out and you think, ooh, who will talk to me? Well, it turns out everyone wants to talk to you about pickleball.
So we discussed pickleball in Pueblo here. We have a little QR code so you can see where to play, like all over Pueblo, Teller, El Paso, and Fremont counties.
MARTS:
Great. Good.
WRAY:
Yeah.
MARTS:
Well, and speaking of pickleball, the area agency on aging during COVID had received some federal funding. And that federal funding got utilized to build a pickleball court up in Monument, the Town of Monument. So yeah, so we’re glad to know that pickleball is continuing to keep people going.
So what else is going on?
WRAY:
Well, we have a great article. If you’ve ever been to Portugal, I was two months ago, it’s lovely.
But if you’ve ever thought, I want to retire in Portugal. This article from Portugal to Pike’s Peak by our writer, Pam Thompson, might make you think twice. It presents a very balanced picture of the good, what’s hard, things to consider. But anyway, Pam and her husband ended up back here, but it’s a very thoughtful article….
MARTS:
Good.
WRAY;
on that subject.
MARTS:
So some good armchair traveling, as well as just kind of thinking about what it’s like in other parts of the world.
Good, good. Some good pictures along with it, too.
WRAY:
Yes. I know I saw one picture of Pink Street. I’m like, I didn’t get to go to Pink Street when I was there. It looked cool. But yeah, there’s a lot of, there’s cool pictures.
So yeah.
MARTS:
What made you go to Portugal?
WRAY:
It was a tour. A friend of mine who is a retiring teacher, we went with EF Tours to Spain and Portugal.
MARTS:
Great. Okay, good. Well, glad to hear a story about it. Super.
And then is there more? One more thing?
WRAY:
One more thing. Friendship Force.
MARTS:
Friendship Force.
WRAY:
Yeah. So speaking of travel, you get to make friends in other countries, have the contingent, have the club come here, go there.
Recently in Colorado Springs, there was a contingent from Japan. And that was really cool. They got to see the Olympic Training Center and Garden of the Gods and all the good sites, and have dinner and breakfast and stay with hosts here. And then the favor gets returned when people from here go there.
MARTS:
Oh, good, good. I’ve never heard of Friendship Force. So thank you for getting that out in front of my eyes, as well as all the other people who can pick up a Beacon Senior News.
And where can they find Beacon Senior News?
WRAY:
Oh, boy, lots of places. Safeway, most King Soopers, not quite all. Banks, YMCA’s, library branches, thrift stores.
MARTS:
Good.
WRAY:
Yeah. You might be surprised where the Beacon shows up.
MARTS:
Yeah. Good, good, good. And it is the bright, shining light that it says it is, right?
So a good beacon shining us forward. So well, thank you, Rhonda. We look forward to seeing the Beacon Senior News.
And as always, really appreciate you guys sponsoring and supporting Aging with Altitude.
WRAY:
Thank you. Happy to do it. Thank you.
MARTS:
Welcome to Aging with Altitude, a podcast providing information, advice, and resources for seniors, families, and caregivers to help you live your best life, courtesy of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging. We’re coming to you from the Studio 809 Community Podcast Studio at The Next Us, a professional, cooperative environment for small businesses in downtown Colorado Springs. I’m your host, Melissa Marts, with the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments’ Area Agency on Aging.
In the studio with me today, I have two women that I’ve been working with ever since I first started at the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging, but I don’t think I’ve had them in the studio until today. And so really excited to have Dr. Sheri Gibson here and Lori McGinnis here. And we’re going to be discussing and doing a deep dive on some things that, goodness, we don’t really always want to think about, elder abuse.
The good news though, is that because we can honor and take some time in the month of June to think about what elder abuse means, we have some opportunities to really make a difference and do some things to make the world a better place. So with that, I’m going to start, I would like Lori, tell us a little bit about yourself and your role that you play with the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.
LORI McGINNIS:
Hi, I’m a long-term care ombudsman and our program falls under the umbrella of Pikes Peak Area Council of Government. The long-term care ombudsman are the federally mandated program and our rules and regulations all fall from that program. We work directly with residents who live in licensed nursing homes and assisted living, and we are the voice of the resident.
So we follow the direction of the resident.
MARTSL
Great. And Lori, how long have you been doing your work and how long have you been in this field?
McGINNIS:
I have worked in human services in Colorado Springs for about 35 years now, and I have been an ombudsman for 13 and the regional ombudsman for, I don’t know, six or seven years.
MARTS:
Yeah. And you definitely made it through the COVID in that role. So kudos to you. And I’ve learned so much from you and I’m glad you’re in the studio with us today.
So thanks.
McGINNIS:
Thank you.
MARTS:
And Dr. Sheri Gibson, tell us a little bit about your role in the community and how long you’ve been around. Here we go.
SHERI GIBSON:
Thank you for having me and great to be with both of you because I’ve worked with you, as you mentioned, for many years and really respect the office of the ombudsman, the long term care ombudsman and the AAA. So thank you.
I am a geropsychologist and that means that I’m a clinical psychologist who has a specialty emphasis in aging. I am also one of the founders and current board chair of the Pikes Peak Elder Justice Center. I also am a faculty affiliate with the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and their psychology department. And I have a private practice here in town.
My work has primarily been in the area of elder abuse dating far back into my graduate studies where I actually researched the use of psychological expert testimony in cases of elder financial abuse, and then also tested the assumptions of what we know around why older adults rarely report elder abuse or why they may not even identify that abuse has happened. And so started out in my graduate studies and I’ve enjoyed a almost 20 year career in this area of elder justice prevention, intervention and response.
MARTS:
Yeah. I know when I started at the area agency on aging, it’s been seven years now. And one of the first meetings I attended was an ethics and long term care meeting that both of you ladies were at. Lori, I think was the secretary at the time.
GIBSON:
That’s right.
MARTS:
And yeah, it was really eye opening. First of all, just the numbers of people in the room that were from all over the region, nursing home administrators, hospital, social workers and administrators, of course, the ombudsman an ethicist from the Air Force Academy, who would always close out the meeting with some type of ethical kind of summary, which again, was just so interesting for me, new to this field.
You know, I came from working in nonprofits, and then I was thrilled to come and work at the area agency on aging, but had no idea the depth and scope of things that professionals were doing. And really got an opportunity to jump in with both feet by attending that ethics meeting, and really hearing the real dilemmas that people were facing. And I know Lori would always advocate on the behalf of the actual resident and had the resident voice in mind and really always bringing that up in this room of professionals and just reminding them that, well, where does this individual stand and being able to bring the conversation back to that, which was always great.
And so I’d like to have you guys share, both of you, a little bit about what elder abuse is and the different ways that this kind of manifests. I know, like for me, one of the other interesting things, again, not being in the field, per se, until seven years ago, my sister-in-law was a bank teller at a bank in town. And she would always tell me about how they had to go through this training to be able to report if somebody walked into their lobby, and they felt like something wasn’t quite right, and that they had to report that to the police department. And I was like, wow, who would have ever even known such a thing?
So, of course, financial fraud and stealing from older adults is one type of elder abuse situation. But I don’t know, which one of you guys would like to jump in first and talk a little bit about what is elder abuse?
GIBSON:
Well, you know, what’s interesting about the definition of elder abuse,
MARTS
See, I knew this was, we’ve got we’ve got some real stuff going on. Okay, the definition.
GIBSON:
The definition. Well, the National Center on Elder Abuse has their own definition that generally, and I didn’t print it for our discussion, but I’ve been citing it for many years, so I hope I get it right. But it’s really the intentional mistreatment of an older adult that results in physical harm, or even death.
What’s interesting about the definition of elder abuse is that it varies state by state.
MARTS:
Oh.
GIBSON:
So for example, in Colorado, we recognize different forms of elder abuse in our legislature. And that is in order to have statutes to criminally charge people with elder abuse But it also serves as an anchor for mandated reporting, which Colorado was one of the last states to pass legislation around mandatory reporting for elder abuse.
And the reasons around that are pretty clear now. And that is that you have to have a response system in place in order to respond to a huge onslaught of reporting when you pass that kind of law. But we have had that law now, I believe it was passed in 2013, or it was initiated in 2013.
And for us in Colorado, we recognize physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse. We also recognize caretaker neglect and self-neglect as well. But in some states, such as California, they have two other forms of abuse, such as abandonment, and oh, what is the other one?
It’s abandonment and taking somebody out of state lines, for example. I’m misplacing the term, it’ll probably come to me. But every state is different.
And so it also presents some challenges about how we collect data at a national level around the prevalence and incidence rates of elder abuse, because there is no uniform definition across all states.
MARTS:
Interesting. Yeah. And even though I’ve been doing this for a while with you guys, I don’t think that I knew that every state would have different laws.
So thanks for the enlightenment. Lori, what about from the ombudsman perspective? What is elder abuse?
What is that like for you guys?
McGINNIS:
In regulation, in federal regulation for nursing home and state regulation for assisted living, it’s pretty much the same description that Sherry gave, the willful intent, which it’s hard to prove willful intent. So that creates the whole different thing. But from an ombudsman perspective, when somebody calls us with a concern about any type of abuse or neglect or financial exploitation, we work with the resident from their perspective.
And if they have felt like that is happening to them, so we’re not going to substantiate for any legal reasons, substantiate for the purpose of finding a direction to work with that resident, and help them to feel safe in their environment. So it doesn’t actually have to meet any kind of standard definition. It has to do with how that resident feels.
And if they don’t feel safe in that environment, what can we do to encourage the facility to make changes to increase the emotional well-being of that individual? So that’s how we approach it as ombudsman, which is really different than law enforcement or adult protective services.
MARTS:
And there’s this thing called mandatory reporting that a lot of folks in the field and in the profession have to report. If they hear something, see something, they’ve got to call and report it to law enforcement. That’s different for ombudsman, right?
McGINNIS:
Right. We are not mandatory reporters because we need to be able to build trust with a resident. And if we’re going around and disclosing everything that they tell us, we’re breaking down that trust.
And so federal law prohibits us from reporting anything without resident consent. There are some exceptions to that. So if we see something, then we might be able to report. It depends on the circumstances and the resident, but we can certainly direct the behavior that we’re seeing at the time. But reporting is different.
And since you bring that up, I just want to talk briefly about mandatory reporting and the boots on the ground folks, the CNAs, the direct caregivers. They don’t have training in CNA classes about mandatory reporting. So that is up to the facilities.
I had a conversation recently with a couple community members about doing some sort of, just, short video training for CNAs about that piece, because they are our front line of defense for abuse prevention. And so if they had an understanding, not only of mandatory training, but how they can recognize triggers in themselves and take those breaks when they need, might move us forward in prevention, instead of the reaction that we get all the time. Something bad has happened. So we react instead of providing education and support up front.
MARTS:
Being more proactive, and I like that idea of giving them the opportunity to learn a little bit more about how to be aware of things, take better care of themselves, kind of be the top employee they can be and taking good care of their folks that they’re working with. And all of that can really move forward if they had some more information on the front end instead of retribution on the back end or fear of that for whatever reason.
So yeah. So true. Do either of you have a story that you could share about someone who’s gone through a pretty unfortunate circumstance and has come out on the other side of it?
Sheri, over the years, you’ve always talked about how important it is for the abusers also to have some counseling and support. Because oftentimes the older adult who’s been the victim of some type of abuse, neglect, they don’t want to ever say anything because they don’t want to lose the relationship with their family and afraid of something worse happening. And so it’s always been interesting when you’ve talked about how important it is for family members or other folks to actually get, there’s a term for it, counseling on the other side, so that maybe the family dynamics can be salvaged, saved, and people can learn and move forward.
But that being said, I’m just curious if there is a example that either of you would want to share today about a case that you’ve been a part of and how that’s looked and evolved.
GIBSON:
Well, I have several in mind, but one that I’m thinking about in terms of how sometimes the justice system can help create a mediation, a place of mediation for some. If we think about restorative justice, we’re starting to think about restorative justice in situations of elder abuse, which has-
MARTS:
So that’s that term, restorative justice.
GIBSON:
Restorative justice, yes. And it’s not been used. It’s now getting used in elder abuse to think about, not so much restoring the relationship, because as we know, at least in the literature, that 90% of elder abuse cases occur between an older adult and a known person. The person is known to them, and that could be a family member, caregiver, even a professional, a neighbor, short-term, long-term friend.
But because it does happen in the context of this trusting relationship or perceived trusting relationship by the older adult, we don’t always want to restore a relationship that was toxic. But could we restore some sense of safety and security in the older adult?
And one particular situation I’m thinking about was an older woman who was widowed, and she was living in a home that she and her husband had lived in for all of their married life, and they had been married over 50 years, and she was now in her early 80s. And she was suffering from some cognitive impairment, but what had occurred was her granddaughter came to her aid after her grandfather had passed away. Granddaughter had a relationship with a boyfriend who at the time was coming out of incarceration, and granddaughter moved in with grandmother on the one-time agreement that we see happen a lot, that I’ll help you if I can have a place to stay.
Granddaughter didn’t have a job, had a history of drug abuse, alcohol problems. And in the context of this relationship, the granddaughter managed to poison the relationship between her grandmother and her mother. So that became an estranged relationship in which grandmother turned against her own daughter, but then accepted the help of the granddaughter.
What happened over time was that the granddaughter’s boyfriend eventually got out of incarceration, moved into the home, and at some point, somebody had reported that the grandmother had not been leaving the home, hadn’t been going to church, hadn’t been attending her medical appointments, and it was reported to adult protective services.
How I got involved was to go into the home to assess this woman’s mental capacity and to assess the situation. And when I walked into the home, it had turned out that the granddaughter and people who were squatting, eventually, in the home, more people came in, that they had her quarantined to a back bedroom. And the rest of the house, when I walked in, had been completely devoid of all the furniture, even the appliances in the kitchen. They had sold everything to fund their drug habits. It was squalor conditions. And she was quarantined, like I said, to a back bedroom. She was wheelchair bound. She couldn’t get out of the house.
And so, eventually, what happened was that there was a guardianship hearing for this woman. The daughter, who was her only living person, petitioned for guardianship. However, the grandmother, over a course of time, had been estranged from her daughter and didn’t want that relationship. But there was nobody else to step in, and there was no money to pay for a guardian. So, when I testified in this hearing, I asked the judge that if there could be some kind of family mediation between the grandmother and her daughter, who was going to be appointed guardian, to see if they could heal or at least set the expectations around guardianship.
And I didn’t know it at the time, because oftentimes, when I get pulled into these cases, I might testify and then I’m done, and I don’t really know whatever happens. But I got a call about three months later from the daughter, who said, my mom died, and I want to thank you for creating the mediation, because I was able to create some kind of relationship with her and be able to see her in the last three months of her life.
And I well up thinking about that, because she said, without that recommendation, I would have never seen her again. And I needed to be with her those three months. And that was really powerful. So that’s one of many.
But you know, these situations occur in very complicated family dynamics, in situations where there is maybe substance use, trauma of the perpetrator. And how do we address the perpetrator behavior or even the family dynamics that brought it on?
For example, there are older adults who maybe weren’t great parents. And now it’s the adult children’s time for retribution, or you were a terrible parent to me, you put me through trauma, and now I’m having to care for you. And those are real dynamics that none of us want to admit to or even acknowledge. But we also have to have some compassion for people who do perpetrate, because there is something there that they haven’t healed, or addressed that has brought them to this place.
MARTS:
Yeah, and having that opportunity for them to work through whatever it is they need to work through, too. And then hopefully, they’re gonna carry that forward as they move ahead in their lives. And it really can be a win-win for everybody.
So yeah, well, thank you for all that good work and a very good example of the scope of what can happen and people living at home alone and being very vulnerable, but yet the system came together and family even came together to in the end. Thanks for that.
And so Lori, I know you spend a lot of time in buildings, in nursing homes, we like to call them long-term care communities at this point and talking about community.
Share a little bit about what else you guys are doing. You’ve mentioned a little bit about how you’re there to build a trusting relationship with the folks that live there, the individuals, and even also bridging the gap with the staff, right? Talk a little bit about some of the things that are going well and are working well for you guys in those buildings and efforts that are moving in a good direction.
McGINNIS:
Working well. People don’t ever call us because things are going well. So I’ll just get that out there. We’re just problem solvers.
But I want to just follow up and thank Sheri for sharing that example and the preservation of the family is so important, because we do see a lot of times where an older person will go into a long-term care facility and the family dynamics are pretty uncomfortable for staff. And so they jump immediately to preventing that family to come into the facility because the facility staff don’t have the skill set to deal with those dynamics and it can be pretty unsettling.
And so one of the things we do is help guide the facility through that, and how do you do this, and how can you still maintain this relationship, because we all have family members or family dynamics that are sometimes not what we would want them to be. But we still want to maintain our relationships and that doesn’t change when you’re older and in a nursing home or an assisted living facility. You still want to maintain some sort of connection with your dysfunctional family. So I appreciate that. It’s really important, I think.
One of the things that we have just started is we have a wonderful volunteer, Connie, who has developed an abuse prevention training. So we hope to start getting that into facilities. And it is really staff-focused on how to recognize your own triggers and what can you do to help take care of yourself. And those direct care staff, the boots on the ground, work long, hard hours, not always, but a lot of times without a lot of support, and certainly with too many people to take care of at one time.
And so how can you take care of yourself and how can you learn to step away when you need to step away and talk to your supervisor about that. Connie’s developed that and I’m really excited about that. She’s just a fantastic person to take this on. So that is going really well. So I’m excited about that.
GIBSON:
And I wanted to just say to that point too around training is, I think it’s been about two years ago, but I collaborated with the state long-term care ombudsman program. And we put together a 10-part training series for administrators, families, and residents around prevention of elder abuse and response to elder abuse. And that was such a joyous part of my work. I really enjoyed that. It was used through funds through the Elder Justice Act. And so I’m glad to see that there is some extension of training going out to long-term care facilities as well through your office.
McGINNIS:
Yes. And the state ombudsman’s office has also developed a training that they’ve been giving to some facilities, but also to different regions on how to go out and do this training to staff and to residents, too. So there’s two different trainings, one specifically for residents and one for staff.
MARTS:
So always moving forward, right?
McGINNIS:
Well, education, education, education. The more people know and understand about the rights of elders, we, and I say we, because I am, still have all our constitutional rights, no matter where we live in the United States. And if you live in a long-term care facility, the law provides you extra rights to help protect your rights.
So just because we’re getting older doesn’t change the fact that we still have those rights.
MARTS:
Yeah, that’s right. And I’m glad that there are people out there who really understand that and can continue to talk about it.
And so coming up on a close here, Sheri mentioned being a founding board member of a nonprofit here in town. That nonprofit is the Pikes Peak Elder Justice Center. And again, that organization was cultivated and grown during COVID with a handful of individuals who brought that forward.
GIBSON:
Including yourself.
MARTS:
Including myself, yeah. And I’m happy to let listeners know that if this is a subject that speaks to your heart or other people that have experienced abuse, neglect, come out on the other side of it, are still immersed in it, the Pikes Peak Elder Justice Center is an organization that is there, with the help of Dr. Gibson and some other folks, to support people through that process. And we do have a fundraising event coming up in the month of June because June is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, kind of time. The ombudsmen are doing proclamations with the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments on Elder Abuse Awareness, and then the Elder Justice Center has a fundraiser on June 12th. And so if people are listening before June 12th and you’d want to come and learn more about this and participate, you can check it out at the pikespeakelderjusticecenter.org and come on Friday morning to the Colorado Springs Senior Center.
And with that, I think I’m going to bring this to a close, and again, thank Lori and Sheri both for a lot of years of leadership in our community and opportunities to make the Pikes Peak region be a place that’s on the map, because Lori and her team are some pretty stellar individuals who’ve received a lot of kudos from our state ombudsman office over the last couple of years. So kudos to you, Lori. And then also Sheri for just all of your ongoing work and continuing to cultivate the college students, those graduate students at UCCS, to want to go into the field. So thank you, ladies, and we’ll see you in June.
GIBSON:
Thank you so much.
McGINNIS:
Thank you.
MARTS:
That’s the show. Thanks to all of you for being with us today. Aging with Altitude is created by the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging. Visit us at ppacg.org and click on aging services for more information about the programs of the area agency on aging.