Safe Places for Aging and Care

About the project: There is an urgent need to address different forms of violence and strengthen violence prevention strategies across the long-term care continuum. Violence can lead to physical and psychological harm, emotional exhaustion, and burnout for carers while being regarded as violent, aggressive, or difficult can have a direct impact on older adults’ sense of self, care relationships, and quality of care. What is missing from current research on violence and aging is in-depth understanding of the environments and circumstances that enable or inhibit violent interactions across settings of care. The overall goal of this research is to identify how and why features of care environments (social, physical, cultural and organizational) influence violent actions among older adults and carers and to inform the development of more effective violence prevention strategies across structures, settings and relations of care.

Research Objectives:

Document how differing settings of care (home care and residential care) shape experiences of and responses to violence among older people and carers;

Scan and assess the overall effectiveness of specific individual, regional and organizational strategies for limiting violent situations and promoting safety; and
Develop an anti-violence policy framework in partnership with knowledge user collaborators.

Interested in participating in the project? Visit tinyurl.com/safeplacesstudy to participate in the survey, or contact SafePlaces@brandonu.ca for more information.