Standing With Survivors Means Breaking Down Barriers for Older Adults
Domestic violence is widespread and affects people at all ages and life stages — however, when people think about the problem, they often picture younger survivors. Too often, the experiences of older adults are overlooked, misunderstood, or simply left out of the conversation.
This Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we join the domestic violence movement’s call to move from awareness to action and to stand with survivors, always. For the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life (NCALL), that means making sure older survivors are part of that action.
Domestic violence happens across the lifespan and aging does not protect someone from experiencing abuse. Older adults may experience abuse from current or former intimate partners, adult children, or other family members. Some have experienced domestic violence for years or decades while others experience it for the first time when they are later in life.
While domestic violence in later life shares many similarities to abuse impacting younger adults, there are unique dynamics and barriers that are specific to age that are important to consider. Tactics of abuse might vary, such as the abusive person targeting vulnerabilities, like taking or moving someone’s walker, hearing aids, or other assistive devices to create dependence. The impact of abuse might vary, such as in cases of long-standing economic abuse that compounds over the course of decades. The barriers might also vary, such as older individuals experiencing stigma related to generational and cultural values that discourage talking about abuse or that reinforce marital commitment and family obligation.
Another powerful barrier older survivors face is ageism. Ageism can be subtle. It can show up in assumptions that an older person is frail, dependent, confused, resistant to change, or unable to make decisions for themselves. While subtle, these assumptions are not harmless. They can influence whether programs believe older adults are appropriate for their services. It can impact how professionals communicate with older adults, how organizations design their services, and how systems respond when an older person needs help.
Being Age-Inclusive Takes Intention
At NCALL, we believe visibility matters, because when older survivors are invisible, their needs are invisible too.
Breaking down barriers requires intentional action. At the personal level, it means examining our own assumptions about aging. It means asking instead of assuming and recognizing that older adults have the right to make choices about their own lives—just like survivors of any age.
At the organizational level, it means going beyond saying “everyone is welcome” and taking action to ensure older adults know that victim services are for them. Programs can ask themselves questions to gauge how age-inclusive they are, such as: Are older adults represented in our outreach and communications? Can someone with a hearing, vision, mobility, or cognitive disability access our services? Do our policies create unnecessary barriers? Are staff prepared to recognize domestic violence when an older person describes what is happening as a caregiving, family, financial, or health-related problem?
At the community and systems level, being age-inclusive means building stronger connections among domestic violence programs, aging services, adult protective services, health care, law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, housing providers, and others who may be part of an older survivor’s support network.
Being age-inclusive is about more than opening the door. It means making sure older adults know the door is open, can access it, feel welcome when they arrive, and receive meaningful support once they walk through it.
This is why we do what we do at NCALL. Whether it’s training, resources, and partnerships, we work to ensure that communities across the country are better prepared to recognize abuse, respond effectively, and support older survivors on their path toward safety and healing.
This Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we invite everyone to consider what action looks like in their own sphere of influence.
Maybe it is examining an assumption about aging. Maybe it is changing a policy or bringing training to your organization. Maybe it is reaching out to a new community partner. Maybe it is updating your outreach brochures or websites to include photos of older adults. Maybe it is simply making sure an older adult knows their experience and their safety matters. Be sure to check out our resource for some tips to concretely and meaningfully engage older survivors in your work.
This October, let’s make sure that standing with survivors means standing with survivors of every age.
To learn more about abuse in later life and NCALL’s national leadership to strengthen responses for older survivors, visit www.ncall.us.
Written by Kristin Burki, M.S.W., A.P.S.W, NCALL Director