Multi-Agency Responses to Violence Against of Older Women

ended

Abuse of older women is perhaps the most underdeveloped of all aspects of support services for gender-based violence in Europe. For this reason, the MARVOW project will develop and implement a comprehensive multiagency cooperation model for working with elderly victims of abuse. It will do so by bringing together a wide range of stakeholders from relevant sectors of activity (eldercare, healthcare, protection and social services, judiciary and police among others) to identify the gaps that exist within current systems that hinder their ability to adequately serve older victims. MARVOW will also assist these actors in implementing direct interventions to support victims and work with perpetrators to try and break the cycle of violence. The model will be extensively evaluated and improved before being disseminated to a wide audience of policy makers and service providers in partner countries (Austria, Estonia, Greece, Germany) and throughout Europe for replication. Main outputs will include guidelines and training materials on multi-agency cooperation for elderly victims and perpetrators. Based on these materials will be conducted 6 Mutual traing meetings (150 participants representing healthcare, social workers, police, eldercare, domestic violence organisations), 6 Local trainings on multi-agency cooperation (150 participants). In frames of MARVOW will be formed 6 multi-agency cooperation groups and conducted 42 system-wide multiagency cooperation meetings. Finally, 30 cases of elder abuse will be treated via Multi-agency case counselling intervention. Objectives • Improve knowledge of stakeholders in the prevention and response to DV (health care professionals, judiciary, police, social services, etc.) on how to identify and respond to elderly women abuse • Develop multi-agency cooperation model that creates a systematic response to the needs for protection and support of elderly women at high-risk of abuse and work with their perpetrators • Implement case conferencing for older victims of violence to test multi-agency model • Increase capacity of stakeholders to address elderly women abuse in a coordinated manner, guaranteeing their rights and needs are met • Disseminate model to other communities for replication Key Project Activities • Map existing situation in partner countries • Analyse multi-agency approaches to working with perpetrators used in other countries • Create Training materials on multi-agency model for working with older victims • Implement multi-agency-cooperation groups in 6 regions to enhance coordination and improve responses to elderly victims of violence • Case conferencing in all 6 regions based on the model • Conduct in-depth evaluation to identify best practices • Disseminate results widely, including in national roundtables with policy makers Direct Project beneficiaries • Police, victim support services, men counselling centres, anti-violence programs, senior centres, health care services, elder care services, dv workers • Policy makers Indirect • Older Female victims of abuse • Perpetrators Expected results • Implemented multi-agency models in 3 AU, EE, EL • Training materials and guidelines to implement multi-agency models for elderly victims • 30 Cases treated via Multi-agency cooperation Case counselling intervention Type and number of deliverables to be produced • 11 Project reports • 3 Reports on existing situation in partner countries • 1 Report on multi agency approaches to working with perpetrators • 1 Training materials on multi-agency models for Elder Abuse • 1 Guidelines on multi-agency cooperation for elderly victims and perpetrators • 1 MOOC • 1 Best practices report • 1 Replication Guidelines • 1 Article • 1 final dissemination conference