Europe is facing an accelerated process of aging, which will increase in the next years (the percentage of persons aged over 65 years old is projected to be of 29,5% in 2060 - EUROPOP2010 ). Given the longer life expectancy of women, the aging population is predominately a female one, living in poverty, on social welfare, and suffering. objective of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing is the elimination of all forms of neglect, abuse and violence against older persons (MIPAA, 2002). In addition, it was acknowledged clearly in the Plan of Action that “Older women face greater risk of physical and psychological abuse due to discriminatory societal attitudes and the nonrealization of the human rights of women". Abuse of older people is not a new phenomenon, although formal responses are still in their infancy in many countries. The concept of ‘elder abuse’ was first described in the UK in scientific journals in the 1970’s. However, the conceptualisation of ‘elder abuse’ only received wider public and governmental attention towards the end of the 20th century. Addressing elder abuse is now regarded as a universal reflection of worldwide concern about human rights, gender equality, domestic violence and population ageing. In Romania, Greece, Finland, Italy and Portugal (project countries), like in all EU, population ageing also brings the need to protect and develop protective measures for older people. In recent years there has been a growing body of literature relating to its prevalence, risk factors and attitudes. Gender, being female, is a risk factor appearing in all the researches. The SAFE project proposes a new approach in the VET field of health and social care of older people, focusing on training professionals and implementing cooperation mechanisms and procedures in the situations/cases of violence and abuse on older women, in Romania, Greece, Italy, Finland and Portugal. In all partner countries, there is a lack of specialized teaching/training curricula with special focus on abused older women, for social and health care teachers or professionals. Especially the gender aspect is missing; in existing training the general term used is “elder abuse” which is gender neutral term homogenizing all older people as the same. . In general the prevention activities of abuse of older women are viewed from individual, group and community level perspectives, and international human rights and women’s rights perspective is rarely used. The SAFE project proposes the perspective of human rights, which is a new and innovative aspect. Also there is a lack of innovative teaching methods that can be used to challenge ageist and gender discriminatory attitudes toward older women and to create positive attitudes toward them among students and professionals. The project also uses the work in the frame of reference of Professional Learning Community (PLC) as a method, and this approach will be used for developing Intellectual Outputs in this project. The SAFE project will be characterized by cross-sectoral, international human rights and women’s rights approach applied to the development of the curriculum and multi-agency set of procedures using Professional Learning Community frame of reference and will be highly innovative. The proposed project focuses on bridging gaps in the VET training in the old age care field, responding to real needs of older women in care and to the working and training needs of professionals and institutions. More specifically the main objectives of the project are: -to improve quality of teaching and training for developing working life oriented training curriculum of prevention of violence against older women in the Collaborative Learning Groups and in the framework of Professional Learning Community Model -to improve professional development of teachers and trainers to work as educators in violence against older women area and in gender specific issues, challenging ageism and gender discrimination from international Human Rights and Women’s Rights perspective -to improve capacity of social and health care professionals to identify and intervene abuse of older women and empower them in home care and residential settings; -to support social and health care authorities and professionals, and stakeholders to develop intervention measures in cases of violence against older women. SAFE project will have an impact on enhancing quality of life of older women, improving cooperation between institutions, improving skills of VET teachers and of health/social care professionals (doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists) and contributing to the VET domain by a training curriculum on the topic of violence/abuse on older women, Multi-Agency Set of procedures in cases of violence on older women, and policy paper that is addressed to the social/health care field and to VET in the same field.
Europe is facing an accelerated process of aging, which will increase in the next years (the percentage of persons aged over 65 years old is projected to be of 29,5% in 2060 - EUROPOP2010 ). Given the longer life expectancy of women, the aging population is predominately a female one, living in poverty, on social welfare, and suffering. Objective of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing is the elimination of all forms of neglect, abuse and violence against older persons (MIPAA, 2002). In addition, it was acknowledged clearly in the Plan of Action that “Older women face greater risk of physical and psychological abuse due to discriminatory societal attitudes and the nonrealization of the human rights of women". Abuse of older people is not a new phenomenon, although formal responses are still in their infancy in many countries. The concept of ‘elder abuse’ was first described in the UK in scientific journals in the 1970’s. However, the conceptualisation of ‘elder abuse’ only received wider public and governmental attention towards the end of the 20th century. Addressing elder abuse is now regarded as a universal reflection of worldwide concern about human rights, gender equality, domestic violence and population ageing. In Romania, Greece, Finland, Italy and Portugal (project countries), like in all EU, population ageing also brings the need to protect and develop protective measures for older people. In recent years there has been a growing body of literature relating to its prevalence, risk factors and attitudes. Gender, being female, is a risk factor appearing in all the researches. The SAFE project he has proposed a new approach in the VET field of health and social care of older people, focusing on training professionals and implementing cooperation mechanisms and procedures in the situations/cases of violence and abuse on older women, in Romania, Greece, Italy, Finland and Portugal. In all partner countries, there is a lack of specialized teaching/training curricula with special focus on abused older women, for social and health care teachers or professionals. Especially the gender aspect is missing; in existing training the general term used is “elder abuse” which is gender neutral term homogenizing all older people as the same. . In general the prevention activities of abuse of older women are viewed from individual, group and community level perspectives, and international human rights and women’s rights perspective is rarely used. The SAFE project he has proposed the perspective of human rights, which is a new and innovative aspect. Also there is a lack of innovative teaching methods that can be used to challenge ageist and gender discriminatory attitudes toward older women and to create positive attitudes toward them among students and professionals. The project used the work in the frame of reference of Professional Learning Community (PLC) as a method, and this approach will be used for developing Intellectual Outputs in this project. The SAFE project is a characterization of the cross-sectoral, international approach and human rights and women's rights, applying the education plan and a set of procedures with several agencies, using all the reference parts for the professional vocational education (innovative method). The project focused on reducing gaps in the training of care staff working with older people, responding to real needs regarding violence and abuse of older women. More precisely, the main objectives of the project were: - Improving the importance in force and training for the training curriculum oriented to the professional life of the prevention of violence of elderly women in groups of collaborative learning and in all the community models of professional learning - Professional presentation of teachers and care for trainers working in the field of violence for older women and in specific issues, provoking sexism and discrimination of the international perspective of Human Rights and Women's Rights, for a capacity to strengthen social and medical professionals identifying and intervening about abuse of older women and enabling them to care for the home and the residential environment; - Supporting authorities and health and healthcare professionals and stakeholders in using intervention measures in relation to violence against older women. The SAFE project aimed to increase the lives of older women, in terms of cooperation between institutions, the skills of VET teacher and health / social care professionals (doctors, social workers, social workers, psychologists) and the contribution when applying VET through the elaboration of an instrument the training curriculum on violence / abuse on the elderly women, A set of procedures regarding interventions in cases of violence against elderly women and political care documents addressing the field of social assistance / health.