Executive summary
Seniors Rights Victoria provides an advice call service to older people who have experienced elder abuse. A lawyer and advocate will schedule a phone call or meeting with the older person to give them information specific to their situation. In order to provide this service, extensive information is collected from the older person about their demographics, the elder abuse context and the perpetrator. This de-identified information has been collected for all advice call clients over a seven-year period (July 2012 to June 2019) and analysed to better understand elder abuse within Victoria.
The conclusions outlined in the report are relevant for the sample of the population who sought assistance via the SRV service, and therefore may not portray with accuracy the demographic features and contextual factors of elder abuse in the broader Australian community.
Highlights
- Over the seven years, the service has continued to grow, with a steep increase in the number of advice calls following the tabling of the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence in early 2016.
- The advice call clients were 72% women and 28% men.
- Most clients (78%) lived in the Melbourne Greater Metropolitan area and were aged 70 or over (72%).
- Almost two thirds of clients disclosed that they had experienced psychological abuse (63%) or financial abuse (62%), with many clients experiencing more than one type of abuse. Approximately 16% of clients experienced physical abuse and 11% social abuse (11%). Relatively few calls were received for neglect (1.2%) and sexual abuse (0.8%).
- Almost all abuse (91%) experienced by advice call clients was perpetrated by a family member, most commonly sons (39%) or daughters (28%).
- The majority of perpetrators were men (54%), however, the proportion of female perpetrators varied by ten per cent (41 to 51%) during the seven-years, reaching 51% in one 12-month period.
- Drug, alcohol or gambling issues afflicted a rising number of perpetrators, averaging 35% over the seven-year period.
- Mental health issues were experienced by an increasing number of perpetrators, rising to 39% in the most recent period.