Thank you very much for the question.

Reporting is a very tricky conversation. We do want to keep in mind that, first of all, 91% of our older adults live in the community, so they are being supported in the community. In the abuse that they experience, in many cases we know that the perpetrators are people who are close to them, whether it be a neighbour, a friend, a family member who's providing some sort of caregiving role, or is even [Technical difficulty—Editor] the person, so reporting is a very delicate conversation. I would say it's on par with domestic violence reporting.

Sometimes when health workers, social services workers or community services workers take on the responsibility of mandatory reporting, we're actually going against what the older adult would want. There are many reasons that they don't want to report. It may be that they don't want their family member to get in trouble, to experience legal ramifications for the behaviour. Sometimes it's because they do feel some guilt. We look at it as a bit of a harm reduction scenario where putting additional supports into place can take off some of the strain or reduce their need to depend on the abuser. In many cases, that can improve the situation.

It is important to consider [Technical difficulty—Editor] talk about reporting. Older adults are just as capable as younger adults to decide what's best for their lives, and they may have different ideas of what kind of behaviour is acceptable. We need to meet them where they're at and understand that we might have really wonderful ideas on how we can significantly improve the situation for them, but if it's not something that the person wants, then it's really going to contradict quality of life and happiness, safety and security. Elder abuse prevention is a very convoluted and nuanced conversation, particularly when we're talking about people who are living in the community.

For long-term care, for example, the conversation is much different. It is a much more structured environment. There definitely are ways that the reporting can be made a little bit more standardized. It's different across the country, unfortunately. Provinces and territories all have different models, so families and staff should be aware what resources are available for their facility, but in the community it's a much more complicated conversation.

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