Elder abuse is being recognised as a major societal problem across Europe. There is a risk that this problem will grow as Member States experience rapid population ageing. (read more on elder abuse)

A common need of the partner organizations in this project is to continuously find new knowledge and ways to educate, train and support local and national authorities, informal and professional carers and volunteers to protect older people from abuse, to empower older people themselves to take over their own lives and to create opportunities for their participation in society. There is also a need for greater inter-agency collaboration and protocols and improvement of services.

The work of the partnership organisations differs from each other to some extent. This enables us to take different and interesting angles to the prevention of elder abuse. There is a common interest to talk about and share experiences and knowledge of working with volunteers, formal and informal caregivers and older people and their families. The partners work as trainers and have created different training material and programmes for their work. The proposed project provides an opportunity to share this knowledge, training material and further develop existing tools. During the country workshops each partner will present the material, experiences and knowledge sharing these with a larger group of actors in the field.
A common issue for the partners is also how to take into account cultural diversity among older people, how to promote culture sensitivity and how to create respectful atmosphere for cultural diversity in society. The partners are interested in sharing experiences in working with older people from different cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds.

The partners have been and currently are involved in different European level activities and projects. This makes it possible to expand knowledge on the prevention of elder abuse at a European level. Prevention of elder abuse is a common interest for EU Presidencies, European Parliament and the European Commission. Sharing this kind of information helps to take into account the European level work and how it can support the work of partner countries. The rights of older people include, among other things, the right to freedom from violence.