Photo Exhibit Places Spotlight On Elder Abuse

By Terrance Gavan

24 March, 2010

The Through My Eyes photography exhibit certainly opened some eyes last Thursday.

The event, sponsored by the Elder Abuse Prevention Network (Haliburton and Kawartha Lakes), was made possible by a grant from New Horizons, a federal agency that provides grants toward aging well programs in Canada.
Community Care, several seniors outreach bodies and representatives of the OPP all congregated at Park Lane apartments March 18 for an exhibit of photographs featuring seniors from the Haliburton and Kawartha Lakes area.

Haliburton County alone boasts a burgeoning population of 4,000 seniors and all indications point to a dramatic rise in that demographic over the next decade.

People are living longer these days. That's the good news. The bad news is that as the population grows so do incidents of elder abuse.

So the purpose of the photography exhibit was two-fold: to promote an active lifestyle and to bring a sense of urgency to the reporting of any and all incidents of elder abuse. Elder abuse includes both physical and mental cruelty.

Karen Anderson, an administrator and coordinator with the Elder Abuse Prevention Network says that this is a pressing and urgent problem, one that affects a large number of seniors.

She says that she has received more than 200 calls during her tenure with the program, but she believes that those reports form just a small percentage of the abuse numbers.

New Horizons provided a one-time grant toward the printing of a calendar based on the award-winning photos of seniors at play. The calendar comes chock full with the vital information and contact numbers for seniors that might be at risk.

"This is a one-time grant to create this photography exhibit and to create the 2010 Senior Safety calendars," says Anderson. "We have given out 2,000 of these calendars absolutely free of charge."

SOURCE:   The Haliburton Echo, CA

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