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Designing Australian Responses to Elder Abuse: Issues and Challenges

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International Handbook of Elder Abuse and Mistreatment

Abstract

Recently, there has been a considerable focus on the topic of elder abuse in Australia through the medium of various commonwealth and state government inquiries, and the issue has been further explored in a number of prominent research projects and literature reviews. This heightened level of attention has encouraged a confluence of interest and debate on the topic, resulting in a rapidly changing policy landscape. This chapter will examine in depth some of the prominent issues that are being grappled with in formulating Australian responses to elder abuse, given the unique challenges presented by the Australian context. It will explore the current national debates about how elder abuse should be defined and the effect of existing definitions on the development of elder abuse responses. It will also examine issues relating to the creation of interventions that meet the needs of an extremely cultural and ethnically diverse population, encompassing both migrant and Indigenous older people. The challenges associated with providing services to remote regional areas will also be discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

    Barbara Blundell

  2. School of Population Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    Mike Clare

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  1. Barbara Blundell
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  2. Mike Clare
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Correspondence to Barbara Blundell .

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Editors and Affiliations

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

    Mala Kapur Shankardass

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Blundell, B., Clare, M. (2020). Designing Australian Responses to Elder Abuse: Issues and Challenges. In: Shankardass, M. (eds) International Handbook of Elder Abuse and Mistreatment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8610-7_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8610-7_29

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