Adult Protective Services (APS) a community based organization that is designed to help keep seniors safe. They tend to be based out of the county system, paid for by county tax dollars. And although they might be intimidating, they play a very important role in the functioning of our communities.
Adult Protective Services might look a little different from state to state and county to county, but their overall goal is essentially the same regardless of where you are located. The goal is to prevent elder abuse from happening.
And we all have a role in helping to make this happen. Whether it’s connecting the people that we love with adequate care, understanding the nuances of what abuse looks like, or making a phone call. There’s always something that we can be doing to keep those around us safe.
They are not the only organization in your community that can help handle and prevent senior abuse from occurring. However, if abuse is happening in the home, a care facility, or somewhere else, APS can often help connect the family or individual with better resources so that abuse does not become an ongoing pattern. They can often help someone who is committing accidental abuse to fix their patterns of behavior and recognize how the things that they say or do might impact others. In other words, this isn’t just an organization that is going to inspect and punish instances of abuse. They are there to help educate and overcome these things, too.
In some cases, law enforcement needs to be involved, too. Although this can seem very intimidating, remember that the purpose of a call to APS isn’t just to get someone in trouble. The purpose is to keep people safe.
Perhaps you’ve had an encounter with protective services in the past, either for adults or children. It’s easy to have a negative impression of this community service. People tend to see the negative or punitive side of what they do and forget that they are there to keep vulnerable populations safe. It is often a thankless job. But that doesn’t make it an important, even noble, one.
So, please consider this my official thank you to those that do this hard job. From my experience, it is very rare that they get to hear this. Thank you for helping to keep the people in our community safer. It’s not an easy job, but it’s an important one.
Remember that we all have a role to play when it comes to keeping others safe. Each state has a hotline that can be called if you think that someone might need to be referred to this program. In California, that hotline number is 1-833-401-0832. If you think that a senior is being abused, this is the number to call. Reports can be filed anonymously, and as long as they are made in good faith, the law protects you from any sort of retaliation. It’s never an easy call to make, but it’s one that has the potential to save lives.
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