Baltimore County, MD Time of Your LIfe, 9 May 2016

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From YouTube: Ombudsman Program: World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Forum

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Learn about the upcoming World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Forum as part of the Ombudsman program, with Lynn McCamie, MSW, Ombudsman Program Manager.

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Welcome back to the time of your life., I'm your host, ethel rasmussen.

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ombudsman protect the rights of residents in long-term care, facilities.

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Here to talk about the ombudsman program is lynn, mccamie, manager of the ombudsman program at the baltimore county department of aging..

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Welcome to the show, lynn.. Thank you so much for having me..

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Let's start off the segment by talking about the role of the ombudsman program in baltimore county and what services you offer., I'm so glad that you asked me to talk about our program.

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The program is an advocacy program where we help to ensure residents' rights and quality of care is being implemented for anybody who lives in a long-term care. Setting.

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Long-Term care, for the most part, are nursing homes and assistant livings and continuing care,.

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Retirement communities that have nursing and assisted living portions of them.

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The ombudsman program has about a little shy of 250 licensed facilities.

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That we provide advocacy for.

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and it's for anybody,, as I said,, who is there within the facility,.

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No matter the age of them., if the need is there,, then we're there to help make sure.

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That their voice is being heard,, their problems are being addressed,.

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And any complaints are brought to the attention of the facility.

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And we help navigate and answer for them.

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Elder abuse can be demonstrated in a multitude of ways.

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And oftentimes is very hard to be detected..

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Can you talk about the various types of elder abuse, as well as the warning signs that you should look for?.

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Sure. there are about five major types of elder abuse.

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And elder abuse is something that can happen to any older adult.

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That lives either in the community or in a long-term care setting.

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So we have to remember that it's almost where the individual is.

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There is physical abuse, there's financial abuse,.

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There's sexual abuse,, there's neglect, and then there's self-neglect.

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Sometimes people merge neglect and self-neglect together.

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But they can be different.. Some of the signs and symptoms for physical would be some of the traditional things like bruises or burns or welts,.

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Or something that you can physically see on the person themselves.

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Some of the signs of sexual abuse would be if there is pain in their private areas or rashes or sensitivity.

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Within their private areas, where you know maybe they're being mishandled.

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Or someone is taking advantage of them.

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for financial abuse,. We see that -- and I think that's probably one level of abuse. That's probably on the rise.

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As technology becomes important, people use it more and more,.

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You have lots of identity theft, scams,.

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You have lots of people, stealing social security.

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And taking their identity that way., you could have traditional forms of financial abuse where someone is taking advantage of other person's funds.

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Or banking accounts, or things of that nature.

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or sometimes even forcing them to sign over property.

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Or insurance and things of that nature for them,.

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And then, before you know, it, they've exhausted their private funds for someone else's gain.

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For self-neglect,, those are things when you have people.

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Who are maybe hoarding -- keeping too many things in their home.

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And then it might become more of a safety hazard or a fire hazard.

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For them to stay safely in their community,.

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Or sometimes, even in that long-term care setting, you can have hoarding behavior as well.

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And neglect may be if a caregiver is actually either.

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Not taking care of the individual or holding back on food.

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Or medication, until maybe that older, adult.

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Gives the individual what they need.

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and sometimes,? You see that in meals.

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Or even keeping them away from the public., sometimes we have people who we know are older adults that live in the community and their caretaker is not allowing them.

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To use the phone, not allowing company to come over.

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So we always tell people no matter what the level of elder abuse is.

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To think about what you see and make sure that you have.

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A good idea of that and contacting the appropriate authorities --.

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Whether it's for those that live in the community or those that are in long-term care settings, so the proper help can be given to them.

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Let's expand on that. if our viewers are suspecting elder abuse is taking place,.

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Where should they report it?.

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So, for individuals that are older adults that live in the community,.

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They would be calling department of social service.

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And specifically, they would be asking for the adult protective service unit..

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There is a unit that takes care of those that are 18 and under,.

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Which would technically be considered youth,, but for older adults you want the adult protective service.

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And then those individuals, --, mostly social workers,, licensed social workers --, would come out and do their proper evaluation.

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And an assessment to determine if there is elder abuse, happening,.

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If the individual is indeed vulnerable, or if there are other resources that they can provide,.

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To bring as much safety and needs for the individual who lives in the community.

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if the older adult lives in a long-term care, setting,.

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As we talked about before,, then the first contact would be.

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To the long-term care ombudsman and that ombudsman.

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Would have the opportunity to investigate any levels of abuse.

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That we talked about; work directly with the facility.

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To make sure that safety is going to happen from that point, going forward.

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If it means changing staffing patterns or contacting the police.

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Because a crime has actually occurred,, then we'd be working with the next step. Entities to ensure safety is there. and restoring the older adult to as much health, and I guess wellbeing.

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From when, before the abuse was happening at that point, in time.

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So there are two different call numbers that we have.

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That individuals would contact.

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for adult protective services would be one.

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And that would be 410-853-3000.

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And then for the baltimore county ombudsman,, you can contact 410-887-4200.

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And if it happens outside of our jurisdiction,, then we do have some 800 numbers that we can refer people directly to.

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Okay,, let's switch gears. as you know, education is so important to both empower older adults as well as educate the general public.

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Can you talk about the mission of the organization of bc-rest,.

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Which stands for baltimore county, restoring safety, today?.

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I'm so glad that you asked me about that.: this is a small program, or coalition I'll say,.

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That started about four or five years ago and it really had in mind, "how. Do we help educate.

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And provide as much prevention from an education standpoint for elder abuse?".

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The department of aging spearheads, the coalition.

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And the ombudsman program co-chairs that.

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We also work with the department of social services, as we talked about;.

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Local legal aid, offices, the police, department.

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There are some other advocacy groups that we work with.

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And also some elder care, geriatricians or consultation individuals.

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Who want to see the best happen for older adults.

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Each year, we host an annual forum,, which is an educational setting.

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It used to be a rally,, and then we thought, "we want to this kind of to the next level.".

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So,, the forum came where we brought in different key speakers.

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To talk about, maybe one or two levels of abuse.

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From a local standpoint, from a statewide standpoint,.

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And maybe even a federal standpoint., so everybody kind of sees that the want and the desire.

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To help prevent elder abuse and what you can do within your local community,, your state, and your federal government.

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So we bring in speakers to kind of showcase.

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What is happening from that end., this year,, our elder abuse forum, is going to be june. 15Th,.

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Which is actually a nationally recognized day and it's called world elder abuse awareness day, --.

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Weaad for short -- and it's going to be at sollers point recreational center in the dundalk area.

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This year's theme is going to be around 'back to the basics.'.

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We wanted to make sure that everybody had a good core understanding.

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Of what is elder abuse,, what are some of the signs.

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And symptoms that we talked about?, we'll have a representative from aarp.

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Who is actually one of our co-sponsors as well,.

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To talk about the fraud network, which they do on their level.

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We'll have vendors; it's open to everybody and it's a free, event.

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And we'll also have a shred-a-thon there,, so it's a special bonus this year to help with identity, theft.

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Wonderful, lynn., I think they're going to show some graphics on the screen to help people find the event, because it is so important..

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Thank you for being with us.. Thank you so much for having me. we're going to take a short break. when we return, learn about senior center travel, senior box office, and what's happening at your local senior center.

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