Aged Care Insite Australia's number one aged care news source
The government must introduce significant reforms to deal with the high rates of sexual assault in residential care homes, experts have said.
Recent revelations that 50 sexual assaults occur in an aged care home each week have drawn attention to the lack of prevention and intervention resources available for staff.
Daisy Smith from Monash University, who researches sexual assault in residential care, estimates that the exact number of victim-survivors is in "the tens of thousands".
"The weight of these complex incidents are so unfairly placed on aged care staff; there's so much pressure and nowhere near enough support for aged care staff," Smith told Aged Care Insite.
"We're not going to see a substantial decrease in numbers until the government designs and implements a dedicated response to the issue."
Ahead of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (June 15), Aged Care Insite spoke with Research Officer Daisy Smith and Head of the Monash Health Law & Ageing Research Unit Professor Joseph Ibrahim on the issue of sexual of assault in residential care.
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It is appalling that this is even happening at the rate described. When will we have the will, resources and funding to legislate that ALL aged care workers need to be trained with a minimum Certificate qualification in Individual Support. There also needs to be tighter restrictions on screening for prospective employees. In this current climate, of COVID, no or very few international students, this pool of new workers is an issue.