We're experiencing a high volume of calls to our Helpline. Our estimated response time is one week. For more information, click here.
In February 2022 a group of Seniors Rights Victoria staff and alumni attended the 7th National Elder Abuse Conference (NEAC) in Hobart.
Starting with a wonderful Welcome To Country, from Aunty Cheryl Mundy, the conference was two packed days of talks and networking. It was a shock to the system for those of us who came from Melbourne, where being in a crowd of people had become a distant memory!
There were many highlights. In particular, our staff enjoyed:
The SRV team also thought economist, Nicki Hutley’s presentation about how economics help bring about policy change was another highlight. Nicki spoke about the economic impacts of elder abuse. Although the cost of elder abuse can be hard to calculate she shared modelling that clearly demonstrated prevention is less costly than a response.
The conference provided an opportunity to unpack the data from the recent National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study, which was released in December 2021 This is an incredibly important piece of work in the elder abuse space and we look forward to using information from it to move forward with elder abuse prevention and response work over the next 12 months.
There was much more. You can check out the full program here.
One of the most valuable benefits of the conference was the connections formed. The SRV team networked with people we are already working with, as well as people and organisations that we hadn’t met before. Principal lawyer and SRV Manager, Rebecca Edwards coordinated a networking breakfast with the Older Person’s Legal Advocacy Network. We also bonded as a team in beautiful Hobart. All round it was a great conference and those of us who attended feel privileged to have done so.
Seniors Rights Victoria presented on the following topics (you can read the abstracts for each presentation here):
SRV’s Community Education Officer, Lucy Best, also moderated a discussion: Can You Imagine a World Without Ageism. This was inspired by the World Health Organization’s first Global Report on Ageism, which called for greater research into links between ageism and elder abuse.