The John A. Hartford Foundation Awards Grant to EDC to Address Elder Mistreatment

WALTHAM, MASS | Education Development Center (EDC) has received a grant of $1.55 million from The John A. Hartford Foundation to support the National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment, Model Implementation. The intervention will implement and evaluate the Elder Mistreatment Emergency Department Care Model within six diverse emergency departments over 30 months.

An estimated 10 percent of older adults—about 5 million individuals—are subject to elder abuse, neglect, exploitation, and other forms of mistreatment. The intervention, developed with a group of leading national experts, aims to ensure that older people seen in emergency rooms will be assessed for potential mistreatment and receive appropriate treatment and referral.

“Unlike older adults with other high-risk conditions, those who experience abuse are much less likely to seek help,” said EDC’s Rebecca Jackson Stoeckle, vice president and director of private sector partnerships. “They may be impaired, ashamed, isolated, or dependent on a caregiver who is the perpetrator of the abuse. This project will equip emergency departments, which disproportionately care for older persons with known risk factors for elder mistreatment, to identify and address elder mistreatment.”

In addition to conducting a structured feasibility trial of the model, the project will prepare training materials and develop clinical leaders in preparation for national scaling in a future phase.

Collaboratory participants include:

• The University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine/National Center on Elder Abuse
• The University of Texas Health Science Center of Houston/Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute
• State of Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs
• New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine

“Education Development Center has an extraordinary history of scaling complex work. This project has the ambitious goal of working toward universal screening in emergency departments of all older adults who may be victims of elder mistreatment. I can think of no better organization to help us accomplish this vitally important goal and help us work toward the eradication of elder mistreatment,” says Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, president of The John A. Hartford Foundation. “This pilot is a visionary approach for all of us caring for the health of older adults, working together with our emergency departments and health centers to create age-friendly health systems.”

Education Development Center (EDC) is a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. Since 1958, we have been a leader in designing, implementing, and evaluating powerful and innovative programs in more than 80 countries around the world.

The John A. Hartford Foundation, based in New York City, is a private, nonpartisan, national philanthropy dedicated to improving the care of older adults. The leader in the field of aging and health, the Foundation has three priority areas: creating age friendly health systems, supporting family caregivers, and improving serious illness and end-of-life care. For more information, visit johnahartford.org and follow @johnahartford.