A provincial hotline to aid seniors who may be victims of abuse is another welcome tool in fighting such crime, says a regional police officer.
The Ontario Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (ONPEA) has launched a new free, confidential, province-wide phone service to assist at-risk seniors. The new Seniors Safety Line — 1-866-299-1011 — provides 24 hours a day, seven-day-a-week assistance, in 150 languages.
In June 2008, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Ontario government, awarded ONPEA a three-year, $415,700 grant to help with the set-up of the hotline.
ONPEA projects that the new hotline will provide support to more than 4,000 seniors in the first year of operation.
Const. Jackie Brennan, elder services co-ordinator with Halton Regional Police, said the new provincial phone line to assist at-risk seniors will complement similar existing services here.
“It’s going to be good because it (handles) 150 languages. Our current (Halton) help line just does English. For those who don’t speak English (here), I can see ONPEA being the first point of contact,” said Brennan.
This region has had its own Halton Seniors Helpline for about a year. It was initiated as a pilot project by the Oakville Seniors and Law Enforcement Together (SALT) group in partnership with Halton police, with financial assistance from a federal grant.
Brennan is one of four Halton police officers who provide elder abuse resources. She is the only uniformed one, the other three being in plainclothes and who meet with senior victims.
The Halton Seniors Helpline (1-866-457- 8252) provides information to assist seniors within the community in resolving issues and obtaining assistance in addressing situations such as physical, emotional or financial abuse or neglect.
The Halton service has trained senior volunteers answering the phones Monday-Friday from 11 a. m.-2 p. m. Outside of those hours, you can leave a message. If a situation is a crisis, police urge people to call 911.
Brennan said the Halton Seniors Help Line handled 400 calls in the past year. “Calls are increasing for things from elder abuse to general information. Eighty per cent of elder abuse is not reported so it's good to see they are calling and realizing there are resources out there,” she said.
Seniors 65 and up constitute 12 per cent of Halton’s population, said Brennan, quoting figures from a 2007 Halton Region study; the older population is closer to 14 per cent in Burlington, which translates to about 23,000 seniors.
Brennan said it’s hard to say how many seniors are victims of some form of abuse in Halton, but said about eight per cent of the older adult population aged 65 and up that her unit deals with suffered some kind of abuse, mostly financial, like frauds or forgeries, with many of the perpetrators being relatives or someone in a position of trust.
— By Tim Whitnell, Post staff