The Role of Adult Protective Services in Addressing Abuse

Abstract

The fluctuating popularity of a social-services approach. The history of adult protective (APS) in the United States is difficult to trace. Some ofwhat is known has been gleaned from oral history. The earliest formal study of the need for adult protective was conducted by Virginia Lehmann for the National Council on the Aging in 1960 (and was used as the basis for a national conference on the subject held in 1963 [Hall and Mathiasen, 1963]). In 1961, the White House Conference on Aging recommended that agencies, legal aid and bar associations, and the medical profession increase their cooperation and continue their study of ways to facilitate the provision of protective to older people (Douglas and Burford, 1974). A number of demonstration projects were funded by the Administration on Aging in the 1960s to determine the effect of certain service delivery systems on the group of elderly identified as in need of protective services (Dunkle,1984). But by 1968 there were still less than twenty community protective-services programs in the country (Mixson, 1995) The real impetus for states to provide adult protective came with the passage of the Title XX amendment to the Social Security Act in 1974. The act gave permission for states to use Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) funds for the protection of adults as well as children (Mixson,1995). Four years later, John Regan noted in an article in the Gerontologist that almost twenty states had enacted legislation mandating that state social service agencies provide protective to adults (Regan,1978). By 1981, all the states, in one way or another, noted that they had an office with responsibility to provide protective to some segment of the population . . . providing such to the needy even in the absence of authorizing legislation. At that time 83 percent of the states indicated that they were in favor of federal legislation to support mandatory reporting of adult abuse (U.S. Congress, i98ia). In 1980, a total of $83.3 million was spent by states in SSBG funds forAPS. However, a congressional report stated that the problem of elder abuse existed in epidemic proportions and appeared to be growing, with few states having allocated the kind of resources they need to meet the problem (U.S. Congress, 1981b). Despite the introduction of the federal prevention, identification, and treatment of adult abuse bill of 1980, which would have provided funding incentives to the states for the provision of adult protective services, and despite recommendations published in a series of Senate reports, no federal action was taken (U.S. Congress, 1981). In the absence of federal direction on this issue, many states continued to adopt their own statutes to provide adult protective services, usually delivered by state or local social service agencies (Began, 1978). In 1985 Senator Claude Pepper of Florida recommended that Congress as immediately to assist the states in preventing, identifying, and assisting elder-abuse victims. By this time, forty six states had an office responsible for the delivery of adult protective services, but the total amount of SSBG fluids being used for programs had dropped to $48.1 million, a 42 percent reduction since 1980 (U.S. Congress,1985). SSBG spending was further reduced to $39.3 million by 1993 (APWA, 1994). During the 1980s, the focus on the problem of elder abuse, rather than on adult protective to address the problem, increased. Researchers perceived elder abuse as a more easily identified subject for study and a more dramatic issue to present to legislators and the public. One of the results of this focus on the problem itself rather than on potential institutional solutions was that adult protective became more and more invisible. States continued to provide these services, but as state laws evolved, each state developed its own definition of APS and the purpose and scope of APS programs varied more widely While estimates of the prevalence of elder abuse continued to rise, accurate data on actual cases served by local nrs programs proved to be difficult to collect because of a lack of uniform definitions and reporting requirements (Whalen,1999). …

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