By Baylie Davis
"Hurting grandmother is elder abuse," it reads.
The words are beside a photo of a wrinkled, gray-haired woman, her eye black and purple with bruising.
In about 15 years of working as a companion to the elderly, Alice Carter said nearly all of her dozens of clients suffered some kind of abuse: verbal, emotional or physical.
It's not always physical abuse, although that happens as well.
In one case, a woman's son would bring her flowers when he came to visit. He would then ask her for a check to pay for the flowers, telling her they cost hundreds of dollars.
But in Carter's current job with the Wyoming Kinship Advocacy, where she has worked for about five years, she has only had one person admit abuse.
"I think one is too many," she said.
Plus, it's a vastly under-reported crime, she said.
Often, the abuser is a family member or in-home care provider. Reporting abuse could mean family repercussions or having to go to a nursing home.
And with increasing numbers of grandparents raising grandchildren, the risk of elder abuse goes up, Carter said.
Carter got guardianship of her granddaughter many years ago when her daughter died. But she was ready to give up when the child was verbally abusive and broke everything in the house.
That's what spurred her to try to make sure both children and adults have happy homes, she said.
"Elder abuse is rising," Dorothy Thomas, the state consultant for Adult Protective Services, said. "We're an aging nation, we're an aging state."
Reports of adult abuse to her agency have gone up over the last several years.
It's also a fairly unknown issue, Thomas added, although that's improving.
Earlier this month, Carter's and Thomas' agencies, along with Community Action of Laramie County, the Department of Health's Aging Division and the Casey Family Programs funded the billboard north of the city.
It took a partnership to find the approximately $4,500 in grants and donations, Thomas emphasized.
The goal of the billboard is to raise the public's awareness about the issue of elder abuse. It will stand for 11 months.
Despite what some have described to her as a somewhat shocking image, Carter said the bruised woman is one of the more "gentle" messages they considered.
"We've seen far worse," Carter said.
SOURCE: Wyoming Tribune - WY,USA
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