Relationship problems and money: women talk about financial abuse

Examines the barriers women face to building their financial independence and long-term security post-separation. Summary Women’s financial hardship and insecurity, caused by financial abuse in the context of family violence, is a serious concern, particularly considering the increasing feminisation of poverty in Australia. Financial abuse in intimate relationships is widespread and common, but because this form of abuse is deeply embedded in a complex web of social, gendered and personal beliefs and norms, it is often hidden and unrecognised, even by women who experience it. Financial abuse involves behaviours that ‘control a woman’s ability to acquire, use and maintain economic resources, threatening her economic security and potential for self-sufficiency’. This project is driven by the need to better understand and address the serious and ongoing consequences of financial abuse in the lives of women and their children. In particular, it examines the barriers women face to building their financial independence and long-term security post-separation. More than two hundred women from across the social, cultural and income spectrum shared their stories in focus groups, interviews and an online survey for this project. They have provided rich and detailed insights into the nature and impacts of financial abuse, within their relationship and after separation. The report draws extensively on their direct accounts. The research literature shows that the majority of women (80–90 per cent) seeking support from domestic violence services have experienced financial abuse. Unlike previous research, this project intentionally included women who had not accessed these services and did not necessarily identify as experiencing family violence. This research further adds to our understanding about this issue through the inclusion of women whose household income was in a high bracket prior to their separation. This has resulted in insights into the hidden nature and diverse impacts of financial abuse on women’s lives

Detection and prevention of financial abuse against elders

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ The Authors. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/ by/3.0/legalcode.Purpose – This paper reports on banking and finance professionals' decision making in the context of elder financial abuse. The aim was to identify the case features that influence when abuse is identified and when action is taken. Design/methodology/approach – Banking and finance professionals (n=70) were shown 35 financial abuse case scenarios and were asked to judge how certain they were that the older person was being abused and the likelihood of taking action. Findings – Three case features significantly influenced certainty of financial abuse: the nature of the financial problem presented, the older person's level of mental capacity and who was in charge of the client's money. In cases where the older person was more confused and forgetful, there was increased suspicion that financial abuse was taking place. Finance professionals were less certain that financial abuse was occurring if the older person was in charge of his or her own finances. Originality/value – The research findings have been used to develop freely available online training resources to promote professionals' decision making capacity (www.elderfinancialabuse.co.uk). The resources have been advocated for use by Building Societies Association as well as CIFAS, the UK's Fraud Prevention Service.The research reported here was funded by the UK cross council New Dynamicsof Ageing Programme, ESRC Reference No. RES-352-25-0026, with Mary L.M. Gilhooly asPrincipal Investigator. Web-based training tools, developed from the research findings, weresubsequently funded by the ESRC follow-on fund ES/J001155/1 with Priscilla A. Harries asPrincipal Investigator

Detection and prevention of financial abuse against elders

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ The Authors. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/ by/3.0/legalcode.Purpose – This paper reports on banking and finance professionals' decision making in the context of elder financial abuse. The aim was to identify the case features that influence when abuse is identified and when action is taken. Design/methodology/approach – Banking and finance professionals (n=70) were shown 35 financial abuse case scenarios and were asked to judge how certain they were that the older person was being abused and the likelihood of taking action. Findings – Three case features significantly influenced certainty of financial abuse: the nature of the financial problem presented, the older person's level of mental capacity and who was in charge of the client's money. In cases where the older person was more confused and forgetful, there was increased suspicion that financial abuse was taking place. Finance professionals were less certain that financial abuse was occurring if the older person was in charge of his or her own finances. Originality/value – The research findings have been used to develop freely available online training resources to promote professionals' decision making capacity (www.elderfinancialabuse.co.uk). The resources have been advocated for use by Building Societies Association as well as CIFAS, the UK's Fraud Prevention Service.The research reported here was funded by the UK cross council New Dynamicsof Ageing Programme, ESRC Reference No. RES-352-25-0026, with Mary L.M. Gilhooly asPrincipal Investigator. Web-based training tools, developed from the research findings, weresubsequently funded by the ESRC follow-on fund ES/J001155/1 with Priscilla A. Harries asPrincipal Investigator

Framing the detection of elder financial abuse as bystander intervention: Decision cues, pathways to detection and barriers to action

This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here (http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8569). Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the detection and prevention of elder financial abuse through the lens of a “professional bystander intervention model”. The authors were interested in the decision cues that raise suspicions of financial abuse, how such abuse comes to the attention of professionals who do not have a statutory responsibility for safeguarding older adults, and the barriers to intervention. Design/methodology/approach – In-depth interviews were conducted using the critical incident technique. Thematic analysis was carried out on transcribed interviews. In total, 20 banking and 20 health professionals were recruited. Participants were asked to discuss real cases which they had dealt with personally. Findings – The cases described indicated that a variety of cues were used in coming to a decision that financial abuse was very likely taking place. Common to these cases was a discrepancy between what is normal and expected and what is abnormal or unexpected. There was a marked difference in the type of abuse noticed by banking and health professionals, drawing attention to the ways in which context influences the likelihood that financial abuse will be detected. The study revealed that even if professionals suspect abuse, there are barriers which prevent them acting. Originality/value – The originality of this study lies in its use of the bystander intervention model to study the decision-making processes of professionals who are not explicitly charged with adult safeguarding. The study was also unique because real cases were under consideration. Hence, what the professionals actually do, rather than what they might do, was under investigation.Economic and Social Research Counci

Financial abuse and older people with impaired capacity: A secondary analysis of Tribunal files

The management of the financial assets of older people is of increasing concern to researchers, practitioners and policy-makers as older people seek to self provide for long periods of retirement, conserve assets for user charges and ensure choice in accommodation, health and lifestyle. This research is part of a broader research project funded by the Australian Research Council that explores and describes the prevalence and practices of non-professional asset management for and on behalf of older people. This thesis focuses upon abusive asset management practices in relation to a vulnerable group of older people with impaired capacity. Despite the vulnerability of this particular group of older people to financial abuse, research in the area is still under-developed. The exploratory and descriptive research design is based on an analysis of data from 234 cases heard by the Guardianship and Administration Tribunal in Queensland, Australia in 2002/3. Access to the Tribunal files enabled an exploration of a usually hidden form of elder abuse and afforded a rich source of data. The research questions explore the nature and extent of financial abuse processes; the concerns that bring financial abuse of older people with impaired capacity to the attention of the Tribunal; the characteristics of the older person that makes them vulnerable to financial abuse; the processes of asset management associated with such abuse and the characteristics and practices of the abuser. The analysis identifies two types of case – suspected financial abuse and non-financial abuse cases. Bi-variate and multi-variate analysis (logistic regression) seeks to determine statistically significant differences between the two types of case and the relationships between the ranges of variables identified from the elder abuse literature. The text in the Tribunal files is used to illustrate aspects of the quantitative data. Suspected financial abuse was identified in about 26% (n=60) of the Tribunal cases sampled. It was noted that financial abuse could occur inadvertently from lack of knowledge about proper asset management practices as well as intentionally. Abuse cases were commonly referred to the Tribunal after financial abuse had occurred and the abuse was noticed usually as a result of some unusual behaviour or conflict that made the application-maker pay closer attention to the older person. Financial abuse happened, irrespective of gender, age, type of impaired capacity, marital status and location (community/care facility) of the older person with impaired capacity. Having access to the older person’s assets, not access to the older person was of primary importance for financial abuse to occur. Close family, particularly adult children, were the predominant financial abusers. Formal arrangements to manage assets such as the Enduring Power of Attorney did not protect the older person from financial abuse and in fact, was the means used to perpetrate the financial abuse in some of the financial abuse cases. Care is taken to limit generalisations to the population of interest: older people with impaired capacity who come to the attention of the Tribunal. These findings challenge some current understandings in the literature about such abuse and highlight the limitations of existing policies, practices and theoretical approaches. Routine Activities theory is proposed as useful for theorising this type of elder abuse and for developing appropriate interventions. A multi-level framework of individual, structural, legal and social responses that cater for the prevention, detection and, if needed, the deterrence of financial abuse is suggested. Recommendations for such policy and practice interventions focus upon the three levels of preventing financial abuse, detecting it and responding to it. Different recommendations are suggested for the different types of financial abuse that emerged from the Tribunal data. Some strategies proposed include raising community awareness about good asset management practices and clarifying who owns the older person’s assets; encouraging family asset managers to use appropriate asset management practices by providing easily accessible education and training; the development of consistent and collaborative protocols and training for aged care workers in relation to preventing, detecting, monitoring and responding to suspected financial abuse; the proposal for the establishment of dedicated protective service workers; encouraging financial institutions to become engaged in monitoring for financial abuse and reviewing current policies in relation to the lack of safeguards surrounding the Enduring Power of Attorney

Educating novice practitioners to detect elder financial abuse: A randomised controlled trial

© 2014 Harries et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background - Health and social care professionals are well positioned to identify and intervene in cases of elder financial abuse. An evidence-based educational intervention was developed to advance practitioners’ decision-making in this domain. The objective was to test the effectiveness of a decision-training educational intervention on novices’ ability to detect elder financial abuse. The research was funded by an E.S.R.C. grant reference RES-189-25-0334. Methods - A parallel-group, randomised controlled trial was conducted using a judgement analysis approach. Each participant used the World Wide Web to judge case sets at pre-test and post-test. The intervention group was provided with training after pre-test testing, whereas the control group were purely given instructions to continue with the task. 154 pre-registration health and social care practitioners were randomly allocated to intervention (n78) or control (n76). The intervention comprised of written and graphical descriptions of an expert consensus standard explaining how case information should be used to identify elder financial abuse. Participants’ ratings of certainty of abuse occurring (detection) were correlated with the experts’ ratings of the same cases at both stages of testing. Results - At pre-test, no differences were found between control and intervention on rating capacity. Comparison of mean scores for the control and intervention group at pre-test compared to immediate post-test, showed a statistically significant result. The intervention was shown to have had a positive moderate effect; at immediate post-test, the intervention group’s ratings had become more similar to those of the experts, whereas the control’s capacity did not improve. The results of this study indicate that the decision-training intervention had a positive effect on detection ability. Conclusions - This freely available, web-based decision-training aid is an effective evidence-based educational resource. Health and social care professionals can use the resource to enhance their ability to detect elder financial abuse. It has been embedded in a web resource at http://www.elderfinancialabuse.co.uk.ESR

Financial abuse of elders

The proposed research study explored the extent and nature of financial abuse crimes amongst elders in San Bernardino County. This study utilized a descriptive research method. This study identified characteristics of victims and perpetrators, contributing factors associated with financial abuse, the degree of trauma an elder will experience depending on the type of financial crime committed. This study will provide an overview of the different types of financial abuse cases reported and determine if there is a significant difference and/or similarities of these types of crimes committed against male and female elderly in San Bernardino County

Archival offender records analysis: examining patient abuses in Tennessee

This quantitative causal-comparative study was designed to examine potential relationships between independent variables (job level, dependency of patient, work environments, sex, and race) related to health care practitioner offenders and the dependent variable (types of abuse) in Tennessee from 2006 to 2015. A total of 227 practitioners who were either licensed, certified, or trained in their perspective professional practice or job level, convicted of abuse, physical/emotional abuse and financial abuse, were examined from criminal and civil dispositions. The Pearson’s Chi-square was used to evaluate the five research questions and test the null hypotheses for potential relationships. Additional testing with the Holm’s Sequential Bonferroni Method was used to control for Type I error for pairwise comparisons between variables. The chi-square results indicated strong relationships between job level, dependency of patient, and work environments with small but weak relationships for sex and race of the offenders and types of abuse. The results of this study indicated that financial abuse was prominent for all independent variables measured while physical/emotional abuse was secondary. Offenders with technical or advanced job levels committed 87.3% of financial abuse. Patients dependent on skilled care nursing were 60.7% more likely to experience physical/emotional abuse. Practitioners in private duty care committed 83.1% of financial abuse. Female offenders committed 37.1% of physical/emotional abuse compared to males who committed 75.7% of financial abuse. The findings for financial abuse was 74.0% of Caucasians offenders and 63.6% of minority offenders. The descriptive analysis examined variables relative to all offenders convicted of patient abuse, their position of professional authority and the work environments, as well as the dependency of the victims on care services

Exposing financial exploitation of elderly persons

With the aging of the baby boomers, there is a concern over the likelihood of an increase in reported cases of perpetrators of financial abuse of elders residing in San Bernardino County as reported by Adult Protective Services (APS). This study included 201 confirmed financial abuse cases(data from the San Bernardino Department of Aging and Adult Services) for the period of January 13-December 19, 2005 in the high desert areas. It is the hope that this study will encourage representatives from APS, law enforcement and the Ombudsman Program to look for solutions and develop effective training programs that will help indentify the early signs of financial abuse

Financial Abuse of the Elderly

(Excerpt) As of 2010, 13% of the population is over age 65; 16% is over age 62. Another 27% of the population falls into the “Baby Boomer” category, aged between 45 and 64. As Americans approach retirement, the question is raised, “are they prepared?” A study published earlier this year found, “a substantial fraction of persons die with virtually no financial assets—46.1 percent with less than $10,000—and many of these households also have no housing wealth and rely almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support. In addition, this group is disproportionately in poor health. Based on a replacement rate comparison, many of these households may be deemed to have been well-prepared for retirement, in the sense that their income in their final years was not substantially lower than their income in their late 50s or early 60s.” Yet with such low asset levels, they would have little capacity to pay for unanticipated expenses for health, entertainment, travel, or other activities, let alone other financial shocks. It is important that the regulations and statutes protect the growing group of retirees. In a survey conducted in 2010, 20% of the respondents age 65 and over say they have been taken advantage of or were the victim of fraud. Of four questions asked about investments, a majority or plurality of respondents age 65 and over gave the incorrect answer to two of the questions: 57% think it is true that “A very high rate of return is only ok as long as the investment is guaranteed or bonded.” The survey points out that this is neither true nor false. 46% think it is true that “If an investment is registered with the SEC or state securities regulators, it has been reviewed to make sure it’s safe.” Only 39% believed it was a false statement. Victims of fraud may be both men and women. A study conducted by MetLife in 2009 found: “Women who have not been in a position to make financial decisions may be more trusting in the advice of others, particularly if they are new at seeking financial advice. Women with cognitive problems may be easily influenced by others, especially if that influence increases in intensity and becomes a ‘hard sell.’” “Men may tend to be more risk-taking in making financial investments than women, so they may be prone to being vulnerable to ‘professionals’ or family members who seek to invest their money by promising unrealistically high returns.” This paper will review recent FINRA and SEC actions involving older customers. It will then summarize a number of criminal actions taken at the state level against investment professionals. Lastly, it will review the state statutes that cover fraud specifically against elderly investors