HOST-A-SCREENING
Join the National Screening Initiative by Hosting Your Own Screening of An Age for Justice
We encourage elders, members of the Aging Services Network, grassroots groups, senior centers, retirement homes, congregations, law enforcement, health care providers, academics and any individual with grandparents across the country to organize screenings and actions around An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America in a nationwide effort to increase public awareness of elder abuse in America and to give elders and advocates a voice in effecting needed policy changes. To learn more about the campaign and to see the faces and hear the voices of the elders this crisis affects please watch videos here and continue your visit at our site!
Join the movement and start planning your event today! It’s easy, and on this page you’ll find everything you need to host a successful screening in your community! Here are four simple steps and if you would like additional details, download our comprehensive community Screening Guide by clicking here.
1. Identify your objectives and target audiences
We encourage you to think about what you’d like to get out of the event. Your objective may be as basic as building public awareness around the issue of elder abuse or more focused on prompting a discussion within your community (whether that community is a senior center, law enforcement agency, counseling center, neighborhood, or larger community as a whole). You may want to inspire viewers to support a local issue or program or provide a forum where audience members can discuss how the issue affects their lives and their families’ lives.
We urge you to be clear about what type of screening you want to hold (public vs. private, large vs. small, etc.), who your audience will be (elders, social workers, law enforcement, families of elders, general public, etc.), and what message you hope the audience will get from the presentation.
2. Get the word out!
If you host a public screening, publicity will help draw people to your event but also will raise awareness for the issue. Whether you are showing An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America in your senior center, to local law enforcement officials, or to a larger public audience, we have provided materials that will help you bring attention to the event should you need or want to promote it. In the Screening Guide we have included a flyer template, a press release template, and a template for a public service announcement.
If publicizing an event is new to you, contact another organization in your community that you know has experience with event promotion and ask for their help.
3. Preparing for the event and materials
TEST EQUIPMENT: To order a DVD for your screening, click here. We will send you the DVD in the mail and although it will likely have no flaws, we encourage you to watch the video before the screening using the equipment that you will use at the event. We also recommend that you have the video projector system set up at least a half hour before the audience arrives so you can ensure that everything is running smoothly. Be sure to address the needs of people with hearing and visual limitations, especially if your target audience is older Americans.
MATERIALS: Whether or not you have a conversation with the audience, we strongly encourage you to provide printed materials that the audience can take home. We recognize that you will likely have materials appropriate for your audience but have also provided a variety of printouts in our Screening Guide just in case. These include an:
- Elder Abuse Fact Sheet
- Elder Justice Act Summary
- Summary of the Human Rights of the Aged
- Introduction to the Elder Justice Now Campaign
POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION GUIDE: The most challenging part of showing this film may be discussing it with the audience afterwards. This is particularly true if you are hosting the screening in a senior center, a retirement facility, or elsewhere older adults and their loved ones will be present. We encourage you to be prepared by having a social worker, a discussion facilitator, and crisis contact information available. We have included a range of questions to get your discussion started in the Discussion Guide that can be found in our full Screening Guide.
CHECKLIST: Finally, double check the Event Planning Checklist in our comprehensive Screening Guide to be sure that you haven’t forgotten anything.
4. The event!
We suggest giving a brief introduction before the screening to introduce the film and the campaign, to let people know that there will be a post-screening discussion, and to encourage the audience to participate. If you have any special guests, such as local organizers or advocates, you may want to announce them as well.
Once the film is over, we recommend that you provide or distribute the materials before the post-screening discussion as some people may not stay for the full discussion.
The discussion guide will help you frame questions and lead a targeted discussion about issues in the film, in your community, and how to take action following your event. Be sure to leave enough time for the discussion, as this will be your opportunity to connect An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America to issues in your community and to encourage people to take action!
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Any information is invaluable!!!
1. Please send us advance information about your event including the date, time and location, and a link to your website (if applicable), and we’ll post your event on our screenings page. This way we help publicize your event and share it with the Elder Justice Now community. Just send to kelly@witness.org.
2. Finally, please let us know how the event goes by filling out our Organizer Survey, Audience Survey or both and sending it to kelly@witness.org, +1.718.783.1593 (fax) or c/o WITNESS, 80 Hanson Place, 5th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217! Your responses will help us plan future events and better understand what worked and what can be improved. Thank you for your support!
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Please Fill Out Our Surveys – Organizer and Audience! Thank you for your feedback and for joining the Elder Justice Now campaign! |
Have been fighting for justice for my elderly mother for almost 10 years. Every agency, police department and witness says the same thing: there is no way to prove elder abuse without at least one of these 2 items:
a doctor who will swear in court that the elderly person is incompetent if she is allowing her drug addict daughter to use all of her social security to buy drugs instead of support her
or
unless the elderly person says that she is being abused
if yu know another way, please help
A sibling causing Elder Abuse (financial exploitation) against our father had a major effect in my life, please read my short story, Sibling Corruption at amazon.com. I was happy to hear of the recent huge victory, Congress passes Elder Justice Act March 2010. Being a victim along with my father, I feel a passion for pursuing efforts to mitigate Elder Abuse. Raising awareness is so needed to confront abuse. Yes, I also spent more than seven years trying to show the courts and any agency that would take a phone call or visit that my father was being abused to no avail. Maybe now with this new ACT justice will prevail. I will continue to work on this issue, if you have any suggestions, please help.
I am scheduled to make a presentation on the topic of Elder Abuse and Personal Safety here in Oklahoma at the DHS Aging Services annual statewide conference (May 18-20). I would love to make this presentation at that time. I ordered and paid for the DVD last week but am questioning the timing of shipment – will I receive the DVD by approximately May 12 so I have time to prep? Thank you!
My sister has dementia and is in a nursing home. Her daughter has POA and is using her mothers money to pay her own bills among other things such as vacations. We have estimated that she has taken $107,000. I need direction as to how I can help her. We live in Texas.
@S Kaplan
You can make an allegation to your local adult protective services unit or council on aging, that the drug addicted daughter is exploiting her mother. You may also have some success by contacting the Social Security Administration asking them to appoint a representative payee for your mother. You will need to prove that she isn’t paying her bills.
My older and younger sister will not allow my mother to freely use the telephone. For 10 years they got involved in her bank accounts much to her increasing dismay and she would complain about their involvement to me. I would ask them and they would say they were not doing anything. My mom asked for my help to put her money in a secure place, so I created a trust after an attorney talked to my mom. My sisters called my kids, the lawyer who wrote the trust, the bank manager, and made insults against me. I stepped down as the trustee mom appointed me to be. My sister withdrew mom’s money and created a trust with it, but won’t tell me how she is using mom’s money. The house title changed to the created trust. I have emails from my younger sister telling me how much my mom was irate about the very daughter who is making all these movements with mom’s money.
Because I listened to my mom and followed her request and with an attorney listening to and obeying her wishes, my older and younger sister will not allow me to talk to my mother unless younger sister listens in to the phone calls. I was sent a list of things i was “not allowed to talk about” with my mother.
It was only a year ago that my mom, terrified, exclaimed that my younger sister was trying to get power of attorney over her estate, and that she was frightened. Well, that has happened. The very daughter she was afraid of has become power of attorney, along with older sister.
I will never see my mother again, most likely. I will never be able to freely speak to her again, and she will never be able to tell me what she needs from me, or to ask me to honor her rights, because older sister and younger sister are holding her captive. The last time I was able to talk to her she said to me that she wanted to call me but they wouldn’t let her use the phone. I tried to get them to stop the moderation. They have completely cut me out of my mom’s life, for honoring her wishes.
California will do nothing. I think that every senior who has adult children caring for them should be protected by the government. Those adult children need to account for every penny that they are spending, allegedly for my mom. These adult children need to know that they need to respect mom or dad’s wishes for as long as mom or dad can make them.
I hope this act passes. Please, USA government, please protect our elderly. So my mom will be allowed to pick up the phone to call me and tell me she loves he, as she did daily for over 30 years. I miss her so much.
Do not feel alone, my WIFE has been trying to recover from NERO-SURGERY since 1989, but has been DUMPED by several agencies, due to INS. limitations, or just plain out refusal to HELP finish her REHABILITATION! This is suppose to be against the law, but no lawyer wil enforce it for HER! If you have any information, pleave call 540-342-0819, as soon as you get this message this rvening! Thank You! Signed: Herbert A. Considder
I hope you got an answer by now. If not, I can share with you our solution to a similiar problem. My father was the victim of financial abuse by a “caregiver”. We tried over and over, unsuccessfully to convince him that his funds were depleted, and that he no longer owned his own home, because he signed it over to her. So we took matters into our own hands, and did the only thing left to do. We filed for conservatorship. After many court appearances, the judge ruled that my brother should be permanent conservator. This took the financial reigns out of her hands, and put them into ours (specifically, my brother). My dad was not thrilled, but he loves us, and trusts us. He was left penniless and homeless by this person. We are continuing our legal battle to find justice, but in the meantime, we control his meager pension, and use 100% of it to provide the care that he was not receiving under this “caregiver” sweatheart scammer. My dad did not think he was being abused. We disagreed, and took action. I hope you have found an answer to your issue, but if not, look into the conservatorship. This was suggested by Adult Protective Services in our area. Contact them. They are your first line of defense. They will act upon a complaint. they can access your mom’s bank account to see where the money is going. If there is anything suspicious, they will find it. Keep at it. There will be many, many stumbling blocks. Persistence will pay off, both for your mom, and your peace of mind. good luck.
The topic Elder Justice Now! is absolutely new for me, but it sounds very interesting. I will read more about this topic and make me my own opinion. Thanks, Ira Wine
programsforelderly.com is onboard with the Elder Justice Now mission by featuring the documentary on the site as well as in the “Start Your Own Program for the Elderly” area of the site by urging anyone and everyone to get involved and screen the film in their community. Elder Justice Now is making it easy to spread the word, so go ahead and make a difference everyone!
Call APS (adult protective services) and report financial exploitation, physical neglect, emotional abuse. You can also contact Social Security and report financial abuse and they can stop the check from coming to the house and have it direct deposited. Let her bank know as well. In Texas, you can also contact the Probate Court directly and ask for an investigation. If your mom is not able to make safe decisions for herself, you should think about filing for guardianship. If it is uncomplicated it should cost about $500 – make sure you use a Probate Attorney! … but Legal Aid also will file at no cost if you qualify. You do need a doctor to confirm a diagnosis but many many primary doctors will fill out the form to assist in making the person safe from harm. There are many geriatric specialists who also are very familiar with evaluating elders for incapacities. In Texas the letter is filed with the court and the doctor does not have to appear at the hearing. If the court has questions and the dr doesn’t want to come to court they will be ordered to do so. Most elderly don’t want to admit they are being taken advantage of – and in fact will deny it! This is definitely not new to attorneys or judges. You may want to contact the National Guardianship Assoc for information or the state chapter. I can’t imagine that a qualified attorney would not talk to you about this over the phone. I hope this advice is helpful.
My father’s wife chose to have hip surgery that was not necessary and it has gone poorly for her. She is now in a state of advancing dementia due to the surgery and her condition requires full-time care. Because she is in a facility at this time, my father has been able to tell us of her abuse of him in the last several years. The caretakers who had been coming over the course of the last two years have either been afraid to speak or have corroborated what my father is saying. He has been afraid of her as he is in a weakened physical state due to late stage renal failure. His wife fired several caretakers who would not do the things she ordered them to do to my father, like put an overabudance of salt in his food to make him sick. We don’t know what to do now, especially since the wife is in a state of advanced dementia and can’t answer for what she was doing. My father never said a word to us, his kids. His wife would keep us out of the house, pretending to be sick and telling us not to come over. If anyone has any ideas, please help.
Once the film is over, we recommend that you provide or distribute the materials before the post-screening discussion as some people may not stay for the full discussion.
I would like to join this group in hopes to help our Elder community. I attended the ACFE conference last week and heard Mr. Plummer speak about the horrible outcome on what happened with his Father as a direct result of having been victimized by a Nigerian fraud scheme. Please e-mail me and let me know how I can make a difference. Thanks so much.