When We Picture a Domestic Violence Survivor, Who Are We Leaving Out?

Building a Lifespan-Inclusive Response to Domestic Violence

Written by Ann Laatsch, J.D.

Originally posted on For the Love of Community

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Close your eyes for a moment and picture a domestic violence survivor.

For most of us, the image in our mind is some version of a young or middle-aged woman, maybe with young kids. That picture isn’t wrong — but it’s incomplete in a way that has real consequences. Because when we don’t picture, say, a 72-year-old woman whose husband of 50 years has been controlling her for decades, or an 80-year-old father whose adult son screams at him and takes his Social Security checks, we build a movement and a system of services that quietly leaves them out.

I want to talk about that gap, because closing it is something our whole community can help with.

Elder abuse is domestic violence, more often than people realize

Here’s a fact that surprised me when I first learned it: most elder abuse doesn’t happen in nursing homes. It happens at home, and the person doing the harm is almost always a family member — a spouse, an adult child, or another relative.

Some context worth considering:

• Pre-pandemic estimates from the National Council on Aging suggest that roughly 1 in 10 Americans age 60 and older have experienced some form of elder abuse, and a more recent study found 1 in 5 older adults reported elder abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.1

• The same data set notes that only about 1 in 24 cases is reported to authorities. Among reports to the National Center on Elder Abuse resource line, family members were the perpetrators in nearly 47% of incidents.2

• A review of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that approximately 1 in 10 individuals ages 70 and older had experienced some form of abuse in the past year.3

• Wisconsin averages over 10,000 reports of suspected elder abuse cases each year.4
• Wisconsin’s population of adults 65 and older is projected to increase by more than 70% in the next 20 years.5

The forms this takes will sound familiar to anyone who works in the domestic violence field: physical violence, sexual violence, emotional and psychological abuse, isolation, coercion, and financial control.6 The dynamics are familiar, too — a person with power over another person’s daily life uses that power to harm and to control. The only thing that’s really different is the age of the people involved.

Why do older survivors of domestic violence slip through the cracks?

A few reasons, and most of them are about us, not about the survivors.

We separated “elder abuse” from “domestic violence” in our heads. When someone harms a 35-year-old, we call a DV hotline. When someone harms their 75-year-old mother, we call Adult Protective Services. Both responses can be appropriate, but the split has trained the public to think of these as two different problems with two different sets of victims, when often they’re the same problem at different points in a life.

Older survivors face barriers younger survivors usually don’t. A lifetime of marriage, shared finances, a shared house, grandchildren, a faith community, and decades of “for better or worse” make leaving feel impossible — sometimes literally. If the abuser is also the caregiver, leaving can mean losing access to medication, mobility help, or basic daily care. If the abuser is an adult child, calling the police can feel like betraying your own kid.

Cognitive and physical health complicate everything. Hearing loss, vision changes, dementia, mobility limits, depression — any of these can make it harder to disclose, harder to be believed, and harder to navigate a system that mostly assumes survivors can drive themselves to a shelter, sit through a long intake, or testify clearly in court. Research cited by the National Council on Aging finds that nearly half of those with dementia experienced abuse or neglect.7

Our services weren’t always built with older adults in mind. Shelters can be loud, communal, and physically demanding. Support groups skew younger. Safety planning templates assume someone who’ll start over with a job, a new apartment, a new phone. None of that is malicious — but it adds up to a system that, without meaning to, signals “this isn’t really for you” to a 78-year-old who’s reaching out for the first time.

What inclusive-across-the-lifespan response actually looks like

The encouraging news is that this is a fixable problem, and a lot of people in Wisconsin are already working on it. Truly lifespan-inclusive DV response means:

• DV advocates and APS workers cross-trained on each other’s frameworks, so a survivor isn’t bounced between systems.

• Hotlines, materials, and outreach images that show older adults, not just young women.

• Shelter and safe-housing options that accommodate medical needs, mobility devices, and caregivers.

• Safety planning that takes into account fixed incomes, joint assets, prescription access, and faith and family ties.

• Legal help that understands how balancing safety and autonomy may require utilizing tools such as supported decision making, powers of attorney, protection orders, and guardianship.

• And, maybe most importantly, community members who recognize that a frail-looking older neighbor with unexplained bruises, sudden isolation, or a tightly controlling family member may be a domestic violence survivor, full stop.

What you can do, right now.

You don’t have to be a social worker to make a difference here. A few powerful things that we as a community can do:

• Stay in older adults’ lives. Isolation is the single most reliable condition abuse needs to thrive. Call your aunt. Visit your neighbor. Take your dad to lunch alone. Presence is prevention.

• Learn the signs. Unexplained injuries, sudden withdrawal, fear around a specific family member, missing money or possessions, a caregiver who won’t let you have a private conversation, untreated medical needs, abrupt changes in living arrangements or finances.8

• Believe people the first time. Older survivors have often been told for years that they’re confused, exaggerating, or remembering wrong. If someone tells you something is happening, your job in that moment is not to investigate — it’s to take them seriously and help them connect to someone who can help.

• Know who to call. Save these numbers in your phone before you need them.

Local and statewide resources

If you’re in Milwaukee County or anywhere in Wisconsin, these are good places to start:

• Wisconsin Elder Abuse Hotline: 1-833-586-0107 — a statewide toll-free line for community members and victims, with an online reporting tool at www.ReportElderAbuseWI.org. Calls are routed to the appropriate county.

• Milwaukee County Adult Protective Services: 414-289-6874 during business hours; after hours, call 211. APS investigates abuse, neglect, financial exploitation, and self-neglect of older adults and adults with disabilities.

• Sojourner Family Peace Center: 24-Hour Domestic Violence Hotline at (414) 933-2722, with text support at 414-877-8100. The hotline can help callers of all ages.

• Milwaukee Women’s Center Older Abused Women Program: https://communityadvocates.net/what-we-do/milwaukee-womens-center/what-we-do/older-abused-womens-program.html

• In an emergency, always call 911.

If you live outside Wisconsin, the national Eldercare Locator (1-800-677-1116) can connect you to the right local agency.

One last thought

Domestic violence isn’t a young person’s problem survivors eventually age out of. It’s a pattern of power and control that can show up at 25, at 55, and at 85 — and the people experiencing it at 85 deserve exactly the same outrage, urgency, and support we’d offer anyone else. Building a community where that’s true isn’t about creating a separate “elder track” off to the side. It’s about widening the picture in our heads of who a survivor can be and then making sure our doors are actually open when they walk through.

Thanks for being part of that work with me.

Ann Laatsch J.D., National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life

To learn more about abuse in later life and how you can support older survivors, please visit https://www.ncall.us/for-victims-allies/.

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