{"id":5020,"date":"2013-09-12T13:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T20:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=5020"},"modified":"2013-09-12T12:31:39","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T19:31:39","slug":"elders-safe-sanctuary-to-include-older-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/elders-safe-sanctuary-to-include-older-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"Elders: Safe Sanctuary to Include Older Adults"},"content":{"rendered":"<style><!--p.padding {padding-left:.5cm;}--><\/style>\n<p><em><center>The background image above features a photo of The Sanctuary of St. Mary&#8217;s Cathedral courtesy of Wikipedia.  For more info on this image, click <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:StMarysSanctuary.JPG\" target=\"blank_\">here<\/a>.<\/center><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Nurturing Elders and Others:<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Safe Sanctuary to Include Older Adults<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>By the Rev. Paul Graves<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On the day I wrote this column, my wife visited our local bank. There she watched a healthy interaction between an elder, his adult daughter, and the bank teller. The man was apparently withdrawing money that was to be later invested with his financial planner.<\/p>\n<p>His daughter did two important things:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>she kept her dad focused on the task at hand when he would let the conversation with the teller wander somewhere else; and<\/li>\n<li>she made gentle comments to reassure her father that what he was doing was what he intended to do.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>She was a \u201cgood daughter\u201d. It is unfortunate that not all older adults have \u201cgood children\u201d, or friends they can trust. This is one good reason why our Annual Conference has decided to include older and vulnerable adults in the conference-wide Safe Sanctuary policy.<br \/>\n<!--more Forms of Elder Abuse (more)--><br \/>\nElder abuse appears in many forms: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation of an elder\u2019s money or property, neglect, abandonment, or self-neglect, and even spiritual abuse. Too often, the abuser is a family member, caregiver or another trusted person outside the family. Outrageous!<\/p>\n<p>Here are two facts worth considering:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A 2006 study by the National Center on Elder Abuse identified self-neglect as the most common type of abuse (29.4%), followed by caregiver neglect (26.1%) and financial exploitation (18.5%).<\/li>\n<li>A 2009 study by the same group estimated that 50% of older adults are victims of financial exploitation. But only 4%-15% of those cases are ever reported!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>To provide some measure of educated protection for older adults, the Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries recently met with Brant Henshaw, assistant treasurer of the PNW Conference and a member of the team that is updating the \u201cSafe Sanctuary Guidelines\u201d for our local churches and conference events.<\/p>\n<p>Our Council is particularly focused on developing policies to guide paid and volunteer staff members working with \u201cvulnerable adults\u201d. One of our Council members rightfully suggested that \u201cfunctional ability\u201d, not chronological age, is the key element that identifies who a vulnerable adult is.<\/p>\n<p>One of the primary resources we will use in this project is a new book authored by the Rev. Joy Melton. It is called \u201cSafe Sanctuaries: The Church Responds to Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation of Older Adults\u201d. Melton is an attorney and a United Methodist clergyperson.<\/p>\n<p>Her Atlanta, Ga. law practice is dedicated to the protection of vulnerable individuals \u2013 children, youth and older adults. She works with many churches across our denomination to provide resources for churches to protect and serve the vulnerable in their church families.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to using Joy\u2019s book as a resource for the Safe Sanctuary guidelines, our council will use her book as the basis for a 3-hour workshop on Elder Abuse to be shared with churches around our Annual Conference. We see these workshops as \u201ctrain the trainer\u201d events.<\/p>\n<p>We want to engage church folks whose passion is to alert and call their churches to take the issue of elder abuse seriously \u2013 whether it occurs in their churches or their communities. Whether clergy or laity, these persons will be invited into a three-hour primer course on how to address elder abuse.<\/p>\n<p>They can then go back to their congregations and communities with new energy and strategies to engage others in a restorative effort to reduce the number of incidents of elder abuse. We will soon be putting out the invitation for churches to attend these \u201ctrain the trainer\u201d workshops.<\/p>\n<p>We want to insert Jesus\u2019 call to serve \u201cthe least of these\u201d into an education effort that can move us toward a transformative experience. When older adults are considered by family members, a community, or even a church to be less valuable than younger people, it is imperative to find new ways to transform elder abuse into honoring elders.<\/p>\n<p>The Gospel calls us to do that!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>The Rev. Paul Graves serves as the chair of the Council on Older Adult Ministries for the PNWUMC<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"mailto:ejohanson@pnwumc.org?Subject=Re: Safe Sanctuaries resource\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Safe Sanctuaries\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/RESOURCES_SafeSanctuary.jpg?w=696\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"padding\"><a href=\"mailto:ejohanson@pnwumc.org?Subject=Re: Safe Sanctuaries resource\"><strong>Safe Sanctuaries: The Church Responds to Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation of Older Adults by Joy Thornburg Melton<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\nThis book is the sixth volume of the Safe Sanctuaries series.  In it you will find helpful information:  stories, facts, case studies, leadership training models, useful forms, resources and source material that will help you develop healthy ministries for older adults and prevention\/response ministries to implement if elder abuse has occurred.  You may view this resource in the RMC or purchase it through Cokesbury at www.cokesbury.com. E-mail <a href=\"mailto:ejohanson@pnwumc.org?Subject=Re: Safe Sanctuaries resource\">Ellen Johanson<\/a> for information.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>\n<hr>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=category&amp;layout=blog&amp;id=49&amp;Itemid=66\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Channels 65\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Channels_65_cover.jpg?w=696\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"padding\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=category&amp;layout=blog&amp;id=49&amp;Itemid=66\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Channels 65 is NOW AVAILABLE<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\nThe Weapons Free Zone Conversation, Transforming Ministries II, 100 Years of Filipino-American Methodism in North America, US-2 Young Adult Missionaries, Bishop: Imagine No Malaria, Elders: Safe Sanctuary, On Church Accessibility. Subscribe now! E-mail <a href=\"mailto:jlove@pnwumc.org?Subject=Sign me up for Channels!\">channels@pnwumc.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The background image above features a photo of The Sanctuary of St. Mary&#8217;s Cathedral courtesy of Wikipedia. For more info on this image, click here. Nurturing Elders and Others: Safe Sanctuary to Include Older Adults By the Rev. Paul Graves On the day I wrote this column, my wife visited our local bank. There she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":5022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,6,142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-conversation","9":"category-older-adult-ministries"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/INSIGHTS_Elders.jpg?fit=600%2C308&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-1iY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5034,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions\/5034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}