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Advocacy for Seniors: Building on What Works
The Adult Guardianship Legislation is meant to help people
who have difficulty understanding choices, making decisions
and acting on those decisions. Because of disability or frailty,
this group is most in need of help with problems but least
able to access information and services. The first lines of
How Can We Help?, the report that made recommendations
for new laws, said:
The best guarantee of a rich and secure quality of life
for any adult is the active involvement of caring and committed
people in her life. Family and friends generally provide this
support and they are also a natural source of assistance for
adults who experience difficulty in making decisions about
their lives.
Members of B.C. CEAS have long been concerned about people
who do not have family and friends that they can trust to
help them. This spring, members set out to learn a little
bit more about how people live independently with the help
and support of their neighbours and community organizations.
Regardless of our ability, most of us manage to get by and
even enjoy a good quality of life because in virtually every
neighbourhood there exists a loosely woven and largely informal
safety net of caring people and organizations. Research indicates
that risk of abuse and neglect is greatest when we become
isolated from this natural source of support in our community.
We asked provincial organizations and people in 11 communities:
What is in place now to help? What works best? What is needed?
We asked them to test ourvery liberal view of advocacy, which
is:
- helping someone get the information they need to make
decisions
- supporting them to make decisions and follow through on
the choices they've made
More than 130 people took part and shared their experiences
and knowledge. This is a very small part of what they told
us:
- ...the word advocacy can itself create problems. One
person said it is a word that often conjures up negative
imagery of hostile face-to-face confrontations, stridency
and aggression. Seniors and First Nations' elders tended
to use the word "help" instead and to characterize advocacy
as a problem-solving activity.
- "...find advocates from those people already in a senior's
life if possible or people who can build a relationship
that is reciprocal rather than one person always being on
the receiving end of help. Advocacy and supporting or helping
one another should be a normal part of life."
Many communities described advocacy in two parts or roles:
a first stage or initial contact and then a second stage of
offering ongoing support. The first stage, mainly community
education and awareness, is similar to the "gatekeeper" concept
that assumes that people most at risk are isolated from family,
friends and others whowould support them. They may have contact
only with a letter carrier or a physician or tentatively disclose
a problem once to a neighbour or a bank teller. All of these
people should be able to facilitate access to help for seniors
who are need of assistance or protection.
"Advocacy is something that a lot of people (health care
professionals, social workers, friends and relatives) do anyway.
Anything that could strengthen these helpers would be a welcome
addition to the advocacy scene."
The people who are most commonly seen as the natural advocate
or second stage of help for seniors whose natural support
system has broken down (or didn't exist in the first place)
are senior citizen counsellors and, in some areas, senior
peer counsellors. One of those people said, "You have to walk
in the other person's world and help them look at their own
strengths..."
Abusers can be very dangerous people. Retribution and safety
was very much on the minds of people who took part in this
project. There is not one who has a specific mandate to provide
advocacy for seniors. People who assume this role - seniors'
counsellors, neighbours, family and friends, service providers,
professionals - do so, often at some risk to themselves, because
of their own convictions and caring.
By many estimates, more than half of very frail seniors
and people with disabilities have no close family or friends
to advocate for them. There are many frightened and lonely
people out there struggling to live independently. And yet,
we know from the calls to our office, from seniors who attend
workshops, and now from the results of this survey, that people
in many communities are reaching out: giving and receiving
support, looking after one another.
Some towns and cities foster caring environments more than
others. One person said "The issue of guilt is a major reason
for a provincial perspective for any advocacy initiative.
We need to ensure that people throughout the province have
support for their rights; have to provide a means for doing
that..."
Another said: "No advocacy or rights support program can
operate effectively without training, a provincial perspective,
structure, support and impetus plus sensitivity to local issues."
We hope the information from this survey will be used to:
- document and support what is already working well;
- encourage other groups/communities to model or build on
successful advocacy activities;
- support regional sharing of information, mentoring and
education with some provincial coordination and support.
The concept of "community" goes beyond location or place
and includes, to some extent, shared interests and values.
During the next few months, the Abuse, Neglect and Self-Neglect
Planning Group and members of B.C. CEAS will be discussing
how we can promote and support community advocacy throughout
the province for people who most need it. We would like to
thank everyone who contributed to this project and invite
them to continue to work with us.
Pearl McKenzie
B.C. Coalition to Eliminate Abuse of Seniors
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