EAVA, integral service against elder abuse

Toni Codina on 28 February 2023

Service specialised in the detection and accompaniment of elderly people in the county of Anoia. Promoted and financed by the Consell Comarcal, the aim of the team is to detect and prevent situations of abuse, on the one hand, and to offer multidisciplinary care to protect and reduce the possible damage caused in these situations, on the other.

The Anoia Elderly Care Team (EAVA) is a pioneering public service in Europe that makes visible and tackles a problem that is gaining strength in the context of generalised population ageing. According to the World Health Organisation, 15% of people over the age of 65 suffer abuse, although the official data do not reflect this figure because reporting is rare.

The service is mainly aimed at elderly people who are known or suspected of suffering situations of abuse –physical, psychological, sexual or economic or derived from abandonment, negligence, self-neglect and violation of rights– both at home and in institutions. According to the statistics presented by the EAVA, elder abuse is feminised –more than 75% of the cases are women– and the aggressors are mostly children and non-professional carers.

The team is multidisciplinary; it is composed by a network of experts from different fields to offer a comprehensive view of the situation. It coordinates on a daily basis with the professionals who care for the elderly to detect suspicions and emergencies and prevent abuse. It also advises, assesses and intervenes on a case-by-case basis. Generally, the unit opts for mediation rather than legal action, although if it does so, it offers the elderly accompaniment before the courts. However, the direction of the service is not unidirectional: any professional in the field of social services, social entities and health services can request the team’s service and jointly coordinate individualised care.

Thus, the EAVA highlights the need for co-operation between a wide co-ordinated network to detect and take action against elder abuse. The collaboration is intended to be comprehensive and to go beyond social services, including notaries and bank offices in the county useful for detecting financial abuse. In this sense, given that the membership and impact of the team’s actions require efficient coordination, the EAVA has provided training to health personnel, social service workers, judges and regional police officers.

Characteristics of innovation

Lab, Aging, Bank of innovations, Integrated care, New service, Prediction and prevention, Proximity care

Localization

Anoia, Catalonia

Partners / Funders

Barcelona Provincial Council funded the service from 2015 to 2019, as a pilot scheme. Since then, the County Council has decided to maintain the service and allocates a grant of €70,000 per year.

Genesis

The county of Anoia had already been aware of the issue since 2009, as a result of the work carried out by the Anoia Elder Abuse Commission. This led, in 2011, to the drafting of an Action Protocol against elder abuse in Anoia, involving various social services, health and law enforcement agencies. The initiative of the specialised team was born from serious suspicions of abuse and mistreatment of the elderly by doctors and social workers who did not know how to proceed. Thus, in 2015, the EAVA Pilot Plan was launched, with the support of local administrations, the Fundació la Caixa, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Diputació de Barcelona.

Level of implementation

The results obtained by the EAVA can be considered successful in many aspects. On the one hand, since the service was set up in 2015, the team has attended to 236 abused elderly people, 67 of whom were attended to in 2022. In addition, the majority of communications to the courts have been resolved favourably. On the other hand, the EAVA has contributed to a greater awareness among professionals, who are now able to detect risk factors and signs of abuse more easily. It also highlights the enrichment of the knowledge of the professionals as a result of working in a network with a common objective and the interdisciplinary and specialised model for the attention to vulnerability is shown to be satisfactory. Thus, as a result of the success of the EAVA, there is a demand for the service to be provided by the Generalitat and it is considered necessary to extend the service throughout Catalonia. For the time being, many County Councils have shown interest in the initiative and the county of Bages will soon replicate the model.

More information

Propose your innovation

See our selection of innovations

Banc d’innovacions

Virtual Metaverse to Improve Daily Skills of People with Intellectual Disabilities

Plena Inclusión Aragón and Cooperativa Kairós’ metaverse is an avatar that enables learning daily skills to enhance the autonomy of people with intellectual disabilities

Energy Control, a drug analysis service to reduce risks

Energy Control is a drug analysis program that promotes responsible consumption

Predictive Telecare Service in Home Care

The Adinberri Foundation has launched a telecare service that enables anticipation and action through a personalized intervention plan based on the 4P model: prediction, prevention, personalization, and participation.

From your eyes, AI technological tools for visually impaired people

From Your Eyes promotes AI-based solutions to improve the daily lives of visually impaired people.

Reviu, a platform that promotes transparency in housing access

Reviu is an online platform for sharing and searching for apartment reviews, with the primary goal of providing transparent and real information about the real estate market.

I·ROC, a tool that evaluates the recovery process of mental health service users

I·ROC is a tool that measures the recovery process of people using mental health services

Confidant, an application for remote care of children and the elderly

Toni Codina on 14 February 2023

A technological tool that facilitates the care of people who need regular care or supervision, especially dependent elderly people and minors. It reduces the worry and anguish of not being able to locate loved ones and allows vulnerability to be addressed through innovative technology.

The Confidant app works in such a way that it allows access to mobile devices –phones, smart watches, tablets, etc.– of the people to be cared for. It makes it possible to geolocate them in real time and contact them easily to ensure their well-being at all times. In addition, the app has several functions that can be configured: obtaining a record of activity –of the applications consulted, calls made and sites visited by the controlled device–, partial blocking –of certain applications– or total blocking of the device, preventing the linked device from being switched off and receiving notifications in the event that it has a low battery level, among others. It also has an anti-theft function, allowing the user to know the location in real time and to avoid a forced shutdown of the device.

It is, therefore, a highly personalised tool, adaptable to the diverse needs –mainly depending on age– of the confidants or people receiving care. Confidant can be especially useful for educating children to make good use of technology and avoid situations of cyberbullying. In the case of older people, the option of a smart watch may be relevant for people who are not used to the use of new technologies.

Confidant is easy to download and allows a one-week free trial. It guarantees security, privacy and transparency. To avoid potential misuse, the app cannot be installed in stealth: whenever it is activated, a notification is sent to the monitored device. In this sense, it allows the option to activate these functions only in case of emergency, only when the person does not respond to several calls.