Elder Abuse and Mistreatment in Flanders: Prevalence and Prevention

This chapter provides an overview of the work that has happened the past ten years in Flanders, in terms of fighting and preventing elder abuse and mis- treatment. Flanders has currently two helplines for elder abuse and mistreatment. One organisation (VLOCO) is responsible for the support, training and registration of cases of abuse or mistreatment by professionals. A second helpline called 1712 registers all cases on violence (including elder abuse) by citizens. In 2017 ‘1712’ reg- istered 187 reports on elder abuse from individuals; VLOCO registered 144 reports from professionals. As this is only the tip of the iceberg, additional scientific research is performed trying to capture the prevalence of elder abuse and mistreatment among community-dwelling older people. This chapter describes these different studies and their main results. A final part discusses the increasing attention for preventing elder abuse in Flanders. Flanders participated in three European projects (EUSTaCEA, WeDO and WeDO2) working on primary prevention (i.e. awareness-raising on qual- ity care from a human rights approach, and more education and training). In addition, in order to increase secondary prevention, the Flemish Risk on Elder Abuse and Mis- treatment Instrument (REAMI) aims to detect elder abuse as early as possible.

ISBN:978-981-13-8609-1

Keywords:elder abusr, mistreatment, Older Adults