New monthly column focuses on vulnerable adults
by Sarah Flohr
I am thrilled to announce a monthly column that will be dedicated to promoting awareness on the abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation of vulnerable adults in our circulation area. Foremost, I want to take a moment to thank Rick Nelson and The Wahkiakum County Eagle staff for allowing a forum for the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Vulnerable Adult Task Force. To my knowledge, this is the first column of its kind in a local newspaper.

In 2007, I helped found the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Vulnerable Adult Task Force. Since that time, the Task Force has focused on communication between individuals and entities serving the vulnerable adult population, law enforcement, and local prosecuting attorneys. We currently have committees established in the areas of education/ community outreach and proposed legislation. I feel that an integral part of the education piece is to provide education and information to folks within our community regarding the real issues affecting our local families who know, care for, or are related to vulnerable adults. It is my hope that this column, a question and answer exchange on various topics, can help individuals be more prepared to handle a situation involving an at-risk adult, if and when, it arises.
Here are some statistics:
The Reality: Crimes against vulnerable adults are rising. Our large “Baby Boomer” population is just now starting to tap into Social Security. People are living longer and, as a result, family dynamics are also changing. We have grandparents taking care of grandchildren. We now have children taking care of parents, grandparents, and their own children.
The Statistics: In 2006, 62 percent of the crimes were against individuals 60 years of age or older; while 38 percent of the affected individuals were over the age of 21 and not yet 60. In 2006, Adult Protective Services (“APS”) in Washington State investigated 10,640 reports of abuse, neglect, self-neglect, exploitation or financial exploitation, and 1,381 of these reports were confirmed.
A colleague of mine once told me her feeling was that vulnerable adult abuse now is where child abuse was 20 years ago, and where domestic violence was 10 years ago. We are just now starting to see a shift of attention towards this rising problem. The numbers above are disturbing; they show that approximately 1 out of 10 reports to APS are confirmed. What this report also does not show is how many times the APS investigator refers the vulnerable adult to resources that they needed or did not know were out there. I would also be remiss to not point out that DSHS estimates that 4 out of 5 crimes against vulnerable adults are not reported.

It is my hope that if there are cases of crimes against vulnerable adults that they are actually reported to law authorities and/or APS, and that people utilize resources before it gets to the point of becoming a crime so we can minimize the suffering of our vulnerable adults (as much as we realistically can). Another reality is that there are just some people who do not want help and will not ask for it.
Please feel free to submit a question to Sarah for her column, please mail it to Sarah Flohr, PO Box 1518, Longview, WA 98632. Please Note: All inquiries will remain confidential; however, we reserve the right to publish anonymous questions submitted so that the rest of the public within our circulation area may benefit.