Placemats to promote elder abuse awareness

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is this Sunday (June 15) and to bring attention to the issue locally, informational placemats will be used at a number of restaurants.
“We just want to bring awareness—so people understand what it is, what some of the signs are, and where to go for help,” said Gerri Yerxa, chair of the Elder Abuse Awareness committee.
“The placemats offer some basic information,” she added.
Yerxa said the committee came up with the idea to use placemats as a way to provide information to the community in a non-obtrusive way.
“They were very supportive at all the locations where we dropped off placemats. And there is quite a variety of restaurants using them,” she noted, citing the Harborage, Mekong, McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Kettles, and Lee Garden.
Yerxa described elder abuse as any action or non-action that harms an older person or jeopardizes the person’s health or welfare.
Victims can be any older adult while abusers may include family members, friends, paid care-givers or health-care workers, landlords, or other tenants.
And elder abuse can come in different forms, such as physical, emotional, financial, neglect, spiritual, and sexual.
Yerxa stressed if anyone ever suspects abuse of an older adult, they can contact the OPP or Crimes Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
The placemats are sponsored by the Elder Abuse Awareness committee and the District Mental Health Services for Older Adults Program.
The committee, which has been going for just a year-and-a-half, also is making plans to launch an informational brochure about elder abuse on the provincial Elder Abuse Awareness Day (Oct. 19).
“We just want people to be aware and educated so we can prevent the abuse of older adults,” Yerxa stressed.