NCJ Number
92594
Date Published
1983
Length
21 pages
Annotation
A family-oriented intervention for elder abuse, using the Task-Centered Model, has considerable potential as a cost-effective, sensitive, and individualized approach to difficult and time-consuming caseloads.
Abstract
The Task-Centered Model is a short-term strategy that involves several steps: specifying target problems, developing goals and contracts, planning and achieving tasks, terminating, and extending and monitoring if necessary. To apply this approach to elder abuse, the worker must have knowledge about the aging process and the family, preparation in family-oriented intervention, and an understanding of intrafamily victimization of the elderly. Assessment of the family's problems is a complex process, but it is part of the intervention and should be an activity acceptable to the family. At least three factors seem to influence whether intervention assists the caregiver: the worker's ability to maintain concern for the caregiver as a person, the worker's knowledge of formal and informal resources that can benefit the caregiver, and the support the worker receives from the agency. A filed trial conducted at the Adult Protective Service Unit of the Missouri Division of Aging showed that the cases encountered were often elderly persons with cognitive impairments whose caregiving family members had functional limitations. Workers frequently encountered lack of resources, resistance, and fear in clients, but even the most disjointed and emotionally charged conversations provided crucial information about the family situation. The education and retraining aspects of the Task-Centered Model had both preventive and interventive value in addressing crises and chronic problems. A case study demonstrates how a case worker attempted to balance the needs of the abused elderly parent with the caregiver daughter and other key family members within the context of a family intervention plan. The paper includes 29 references.