Native American Elder Justice Initiative

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The Native American Elder Justice Initiative (NAEJI) will address the need for more culturally appropriate information and community education materials on elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation in Indian Country. It is expected that activities carried out under NAEJI will address at least one (1) of the needs listed below: a) Identify, develop, or disseminate information and strategies on effective collaborations between tribal and non-tribal entities to address suspected cases of abuse, neglect, or exploitation; b) Assist Tribes in the development of tribal codes that protect seniors, building on existing work to develop model codes and an implementation toolkit, and maintaining examples of tribal codes to share with those creating or updating their own codes; c) Identify, develop, or disseminate informational materials for professionals and tribal members on elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation that are culturally appropriate to Tribal perceptions of abuse and Tribal values; d) Develop training and technical assistance materials about elder abuse in Indian Country, such as: basic information about elder abuse, how to identify abuse, developing effective multi-disciplinary teams, and developing and/or promoting effective tribal prevention, intervention, and response activities, including those that involve effective cross-jurisdictional partnerships; e) Provide training, technical assistance, and outreach to increase awareness of the problem of elder abuse in Indian Country, as well as the NAEJI, such as through conference presentations, materials development, PSAs, newsletters, articles, etc.; f) Identify, develop, disseminate, or provide training to tribal professionals on elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation; and g) Explore with Tribes the needs and challenges surrounding data collection on elder abuse issues in Indian Country, including what kinds of data would be useful and to whom, how data could be collected, who would/could collect it, how would confidentiality be guaranteed, what kind of system would be necessary to house and securely store data, who would “own” the data, and other issues related to the development of data collection systems.

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