With the number of Americans over the age of 65 at 41 million and increasing, governments and local organizations are faced with the growing problem of elder abuse, which is defined as the intentional or neglectful acts by a caregiver or trusted individual that lead to, or may lead to, harm of a vulnerable elder.

In Spokane, a group known as Vulnerable Adult Links United, or VALU, has been meeting for more than a decade in an attempt to do something about vulnerable adult abuse. A vulnerable adult is anyone who is over the age of 65, or over the age of 18 and has developmental disabilities. 

 VALU is a group comprised of volunteers from local agencies aiming to educate and prevent vulnerable adult abuse through partnerships and networking. 

The group functions as a network for members to refer to when vulnerable adult issues arise in their individual agencies. Participants in VALU come from agencies such as Spokane Community Oriented Policing Services, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Gonzaga School of Law, the Washington State Long-Term Care Ombudsman’s office, Aging & Long Term Care of Eastern Washington, the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office, and the state attorney general’s office. Other participants include local businesses people, nurses and other health care professionals, and guardianship providers. 

Pearl Bouchard, aging and disability resource network coordinator for nonprofit Aging & Long Term Care, says that members use the network to help elders who may need legal advice, long-term care, or referrals to other services.  

Larry Weiser, an associate professor at the Gonzaga School of Law and the director of its clinical law programs, says that VALU has given the school’s elder law clinic more resources to assist its clients. The elder law clinic gives second- and third-year law students the opportunity to further their education while helping elderly members of the community. 

“The Gonzaga elder law program has been running for 33 years, but we haven’t networked with law enforcement so much,” Weiser says. “Now we know who to talk to.”

In particular, Weiser says that through VALU, attorneys and students in the clinic can refer elders who come to them with nonlegal issues. 

“There are times when the elderly come to us and it’s not a legal problem,” Weiser says. “Now we know who to send them to; we have numerous referral sources. VALU makes those referral systems stronger.”

Oscar Haupt, business manager for Providence Adult Day Health, says he recently used the organization’s network to help local veterans navigate the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health system.

“Our last monthly meeting presenters (talked about) veterans,” Haupt says. “I got in touch with them after, and they helped get some of our veterans get through the system. I’ve used them probably four or five times now.”

Late last month, VALU held its annual summer summit at Gonzaga School of Law. About 200 people attended, says Lynn Mounsey, a Spokane-based assistant attorney general with the Washington state Office of the Attorney General and a member of VALU. The summit included guest speakers such as elder law prosecutors, health care professionals, and community leaders. 

“We had a huge mix,” she says. “A lot of social workers, caregivers, and attorneys were there.”

The organization received a $2,000 grant from Aging & Long Term Care for this year’s summit, Mounsey says. Attendees were charged a $30 registration fee for the summit, she says.  

Membership in VALU is based on word of mouth, she says. In addition to the summer summit, members meet monthly, usually at the attorney general’s offices, to discuss different areas of vulnerable adult abuse and how to prevent such abuse and how to respond to abuse complaints.

VALU doesn’t have an operating budget, Mounsey says; all the members are volunteers who attend meetings on their own time. 

“We all have full-time jobs,” Mounsey says. “We end up hoping each of us will be an ambassador and take back resources to our own organizations.”

Mounsey says the community organization has about 180 members from various agencies, but average monthly meeting attendance is about 18 to 30 people. 

What later became VALU started in 2003 as the Inland Pacific Northwest Vulnerable Adult Alliance, Mounsey says. 

The alliance was formed after the county prosecutor’s office, which Mounsey worked for at the time, handled the case of a 70-year-old, mentally disabled woman who was scalded in a bathtub while living in an adult family home. She died 15 days later from her injuries.

 A certified nursing assistant who was working in the home at the time was charged with second-degree manslaughter, Mounsey says, after an investigation by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office concluded that the nursing assistant knew the water temperature in the house fluctuated and had left the elderly woman alone in the bathtub. 

“The prosecutor’s office hadn’t successfully charged someone with second-degree manslaughter for a case like this at that time,” Mounsey said. “But we did, and she was convicted.”  

The witness list for the trial was so extensive, Mounsey says, that it became clear that a network was needed to coordinate all aspects of preventing and prosecuting vulnerable adult abuse. 

“We figured all these people need to be at the table to put the pieces together,” she says. “So we started in the prosecutor’s office in 2003, and in 2004 we changed the name to VALU and moved to the attorney general’s office.”

Brooks Clemmons, another assistant attorney general here, says that elders and vulnerable adults face a number of dangers, particularly falling victim to financial scams. 

“We see a lot of imposter scams,” Clemmons says. “Someone will pretend to be a friend or family member and say they need money. We also see people who pretend to be from social services, Medicare, or law enforcement, claiming an elder has an outstanding bill … It’s good, as a resource, to say these (scams) are going on so people can be aware. That’s what I see as VALU’s greatest purpose, sharing that information.”

Several local financial institutions are involved with VALU, Mounsey says. 

“They come to get educated like everyone else, and sometimes provide training,” she says. Spokane City Credit Union and Spokane Teachers Credit Union are examples of local financial institutions that participate, Mounsey says. 

Weiser, of the Gonzaga law school, says that under a state law titled “Abuse of Vulnerable Adults,” financial institutions don’t have to honor withdrawals if they suspect a vulnerable adult is being exploited.

The law also requires training for their employees on how to recognize financial exploitation. 

“Tellers are supposed to get training on it now,” he says. “They take it really seriously.”

Weiser also says the Gonzaga elder law clinic sees a lot of housing issues and exploitation of elders in the housing market. 

“We see a lot of victims of predatory lending or bad refinancing,” he says. “I see many more homeless elderly now. Also, more domestic violence, more dissolutions … some seniors come directly to us and have a myriad of problems.”

Mounsey says that in addition to being a resource for local agencies, VALU also can help elders themselves find services or spot scams. 

“One of our biggest goals is to figure out how to help keep elders in their homes,” Mounsey says. “Sometimes one spouse dies and the other tries to take care of the home, and there are scammers offering handyman services … They don’t think, ‘Is this person bonded?’ Or, ‘I should run this person through the Better Business Bureau.’”

The VALU team would like to see the revival of a once-active program called Gatekeeper that assisted seniors in keeping their homes, Mounsey says. The Gatekeeper program was started in 1978 by the late Ray Raschko at Spokane Mental Health’s Elder Services. 

The program was made up of employees of businesses that came into contact with the elderly on a regular basis, such as postal workers, police, and utility workers. 

Gatekeepers were trained to identify elders who appear to have problems keeping up their homes or who might be victims of abuse. Signs that Gatekeepers looked for include a dilapidated home, poor personal hygiene, severe visual and hearing impairment, and confusion. 

The Gatekeeper Program fell off around the mid-2000s, Mounsey says, following Raschko’s death in 2001. However, some agencies, such as the local branch of the U.S. Postal Service, decided to keep it going, she says. 

“Some people said, ‘This is too great of a program to let go entirely,’ so for example the Post Office decided it would kind of do it in-house,” Mounsey says. 

“Because of the training Ray did in the community and what Elder Services did back in the 70s and 80s, so many people are better equipped to look out for their neighbors.”

In addition to restarting the Gatekeeper Program, Mounsey says VALU also would like to see more funding for the prosecution of vulnerable adult abuse cases in Spokane County. 

“I would like to see at least one dedicated prosecutor in the region for elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation,” Mounsey says. 

She adds, “Also, I’d like to have a database (for incidents), because grants are driven by data.”

At the national level, the Obama administration in March put forth a $25 million proposal to fund the Elder Justice Act, a law that was passed in 2010 but has remained stagnant due to a lack of funding. 

The federal proposal would fund studies to test ways of detecting elder abuse, strengthen data collection, and fund research on elder abuse. The proposal currently is being reviewed by the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate Appropriations Committees. 

While the investigation and prosecution of elder and vulnerable adult cases is moving forward, it still has a long way to go, she says. 

“Forty years ago, we didn’t have a coordinated response to dealing with child abuse,” Mounsey says. “Now there’s a procedure, a timeline. That’s about where we are with elder abuse. The community has come together and said, ‘This is not acceptable, and we’re going to address it.’”