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Elder Abuse and Mistreatment in Flanders: Prevalence and Prevention

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International Handbook of Elder Abuse and Mistreatment

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the work that has happened the past ten years in Flanders, in terms of fighting and preventing elder abuse and mistreatment. Flanders has currently two helplines for elder abuse and mistreatment. One organisation (VLOCO) is responsible for the support, training and registration of cases of abuse or mistreatment by professionals. A second helpline called 1712 registers all cases on violence (including elder abuse) by citizens. In 2017 ‘1712’ registered 187 reports on elder abuse from individuals; VLOCO registered 144 reports from professionals. As this is only the tip of the iceberg, additional scientific research is performed trying to capture the prevalence of elder abuse and mistreatment among community-dwelling older people. This chapter describes these different studies and their main results. A final part discusses the increasing attention for preventing elder abuse in Flanders. Flanders participated in three European projects (EUSTaCEA, WeDO and WeDO2) working on primary prevention (i.e. awareness-raising on quality care from a human rights approach, and more education and training). In addition, in order to increase secondary prevention, the Flemish Risk on Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Instrument (REAMI) aims to detect elder abuse as early as possible.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For instance, the older women were asked if somebody close to her has ‘…insulted you or sworn at you / called you fat, ugly or other names / shouted or yelled at you? / destroyed something that belonged to you? …thrown a hard object at you or used some kind of weapon?’, etc.

  2. 2.

    AGE Platform Europe is a European network of more than 150 organisations of and for people aged 50+ representing directly over 40 million older people in Europe. (www.age-platform.eu).

  3. 3.

    Measured using high-quality evaluations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium

    Liesbeth De Donder, Sofie Van Regenmortel, Deborah Lambotte, Nico De Witte & Dominique Verté

  2. University College Ghent, Ghent, Belgium

    Nico De Witte

Authors
  1. Liesbeth De Donder
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  2. Sofie Van Regenmortel
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  3. Deborah Lambotte
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  4. Nico De Witte
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  5. Dominique Verté
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Liesbeth De Donder .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Maitreyi College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Mala Kapur Shankardass

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De Donder, L., Van Regenmortel, S., Lambotte, D., De Witte, N., Verté, D. (2020). Elder Abuse and Mistreatment in Flanders: Prevalence and Prevention. In: Shankardass, M. (eds) International Handbook of Elder Abuse and Mistreatment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8610-7_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8610-7_17

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-8610-7

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