Create a patient brochure on domestic violence
Create a patient brochure on domestic violence
As a case manager, you occasionally may observe cases of elder abuse or domestic violence, and you’re required to report any suspicions of abuse to supervisors. You may ask a home health agency to send a social worker to the home for further assessment of the situation and report the suspicions to state and local officials. But what happens next?
It’s probably a good idea to have a simple educational brochure available for clients who are victims of abuse. This resource should offer tips on how clients can protect themselves from potentially dangerous or financially exploitative situations.
Go to the sources
These resources might help you create an elder abuse brochure:
• Karen Greene Blondell, Kentucky Common wealth attorney with the 44th Judicial Circuit in Middlesboro, KY, has created a "Domestic Violence Personal Safety Plan." Telephone: (606) 248-0224.
• Crime Prevention Center, Office of the Attorney General, P.O. Box 944255, Sacramento, CA 94244-2550.
• Domestic Violence Project, 6308 8th Ave., Kenosha, WI 53143. Telephone: (414) 656-8502. Fax: (414) 656-0075.
The following guidelines are based on educational materials found in the resources listed above:
1. Protect yourself from an explosive incident.
• Pay close attention to your intuition about whether someone means to harm you.
• Let a health care worker or someone else know if someone in your household is using drugs.
• Watch for signs that someone in your household hears voices, imagines evil conspiracies, or talks about murder and violent acts.
• If an argument seems unavoidable, try to have it in a room or area where you have access to an exit. Try to stay away from the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, or anywhere else weapons might be available.
• Identify one or more neighbors you can tell about the violence and ask them to call the police if they hear a disturbance coming from your home.
• Call a shelter hotline if you need to leave the house immediately.
• If someone has harmed you physically, tell your health care provider or the police department about the assault. They can locate help for you.
2. Secure your home.
• If someone you know is becoming violent, and this person does not live with you but has a key to your home, then have your locks changed and secure your windows.
• Discuss a safety plan with a relative or friend you trust.
• Inform your neighbors or a landlord that a person who had been living with you no longer does so and should not be allowed in the building.
• Arrange to have your telephone hooked up to a caller ID service or an answering machine so you or a trusted relative can screen your calls.
• Install deadbolt locks on all your doors.
• Install a peephole in your front door so you can see visitors without opening the door.
3. Protect your finances.
• Don’t keep more cash than necessary in your purse or wallet.
• Don’t give out your credit card or checking account numbers to anyone over the telephone, unless you have called a mail order business or similar company to make a purchase.
• Never withdraw money from your bank account for anyone except yourself.
• Have your government checks or paychecks deposited directly to your bank account.
• Check your credit card bills each month to make sure that you made all of the charges listed.
• Cut up all department store and other charge cards that you no longer use.
• Put a 900-number block on your telephone so no one will be able to run up hundreds of dollars in calls to psychic hotlines and other types of services for which the caller must pay by the minute.
• If you’ve been swindled or conned, report the crime to your local police or the district attorney’s office.
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