NCJ Number
203214
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 9 Issue: 12 Dated: December 2003 Pages: 1504-1513
Date Published
December 2003
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article describes the development and results of an interagency collaboration in a Florida community designed to fill the gaps in services for older victims of domestic violence.
Abstract
St. Augustine, FL, was selected by the Florida Department of Elder Affairs to be the site for the Elder Domestic Violence Collaborative Project. Project leadership came from two local organizations that had long-standing executive directors: the St. Johns County Council on Aging and the Betty Griffin House, a domestic violence center. The purposes of the project were to create collaborative partnerships with appropriate community groups to ascertain gaps in services for the elderly victims of domestic violence; to prepare a domestic violence center to become "elder ready;" to create partnerships with community-based facilities to provide service space; and to retrofit a safe room in a senior center for respite and security for older victims of domestic abuse awaiting case management. The project resulted in an interagency collaboration that produced a network better able to respond to elder domestic violence than was the case prior to the project. The broader goal of the project was to provide a demonstration as to how to make Florida's domestic violence centers more "elder friendly." For the year following the dissemination of educational products following the project, the number of older women sheltered by the same number of domestic violence centers in the State increased from 70 (2000 to 2001) to 123 (2001 to 2002). 20 references