Thank you, Madam Chair.
Vigil'Ange is an organization that helps vulnerable seniors. It has joined forces with the Centre d'assistance et d'accompagnement aux plaintes, or CAAP, des Laurentides, an organization that supports seniors through the abuse complaint process.
Twelve per cent of the requests made to the Vigil'Ange organization are cases of abuse. The most common types of abuse are financial, material, and psychological abuse, as well as bullying, harassment, threats, control, and ageism. We also note that the common denominators of all these situations are isolation and vulnerability. Also, the abuse is inflicted most of the time by a family member or close friend.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, one of our many concerns has been Internet scams. Indeed, several very complex cases have been referred to us, particularly by investigators from our territory's police department.
In these types of situations, Vigil'Ange's recommended approach consists of extreme delicacy in interventions, interdisciplinary expertise and consultation between the various players in the field. Vigil'Ange respects the person's pace, takes the time to understand what they want and what they feel is best to improve their quality of life, maintain the bond of trust, give them back the power to act on their life, nourish hope, break their isolation, as well as inform them about the services and aid resources adapted to their needs that are available in their territory.
The notions of vulnerability and consent make interventions very complex. This is because a person may be deemed competent to make a decision, but if they are in a vulnerable situation, their judgment may be impaired or influenced by a fear of retaliation.
Also, the notion of consent by the person in need is often tinged with a sense of mistrust, shame, or anxiety. In many of the cases, the abuser is a family member and may have a significant connection to the victim or have a dependent relationship with the victim, as the caregiver may be the victim's child or grandchild.
A family caregiver may also be caring at first, but the relationship with the senior may turn abusive along the way for any number of reasons such as exhaustion, mental health issues, addiction, illness, bereavement, or loss of independence. However, maintaining the link with the person in need remains our priority. Abuse is a very taboo subject, hence the importance of creating a bond of trust with the person in need and respecting his or her pace in the help we offer.
The watch persons or outlooks are Vigil'Ange's eyes and ears in the field, as they maintain a close relationship with the seniors. They are present in their environments and seek our attention in case of situations of concern. Vigil'Ange's outlooks are police officers, community organization workers, doctors and health professionals, but also hairdressers, home care workers, neighbours, friends and community members. Anyone who cares about seniors can become an outlook.
What would be some possible solutions? Offer more training on abuse to frontline workers, such as employees working with seniors, as well as to all staff and professionals who have a close or distant link with a senior clientele; create accommodation and emergency resources adapted to people with reduced mobility, as we have noted that there are none in many regions; do more awareness-raising on topics such as ageism, advocacy and resources available to isolated or vulnerable seniors; better define the notion of vulnerability, in order to facilitate interventions with victims of abuse and thus give more power to frontline workers.
There is also a need to provide more recurrent funding to community organizations working in the field and helping seniors in need, to put in place a protection mechanism to protect the victim from any reprisals when they make a denunciation, and to offer them medium- and long-term psychological support. It is therefore necessary to provide sustained care for the victims in order to ensure their psychological health, to teach them to recognize their limits and know how to express them, and to equip them so that the abuse does not recur.
Thank you.