Researchers are calling for aged care staff to be given better training in preventing and reporting sexual assault, with two thirds of aged care staff not having received any such training in the last 12 months.
Though the Royal Commission found an estimated 50 assaults occurred in Australian residential aged care facilities nationally every week, the research team from Monash University determined that none of the 148 recommendations released this year specifically address preventing sexual violence.
“Staff confirmed aged care approved providers often do not have dedicated or specific procedures to prevent or manage incidents.
“Failing to combat sexual violence in aged care homes demonstrates an apathy towards older survivors and reinforces the existing difficulties faced by older people to achieve a basic human right: to live free from sexual violence,” they wrote in The Conversation.
According to the team, the tool released by the regulator this month places undue burdens on staff to perform “forensic work” of investigating incidents, which is best left to police; the researchers have put together their own e-training intervention to improve prevention, detection, and management of sexual violence incidents.
“The e-training intervention covers key definitions and characteristics, detection, management and ways to support resident victim-survivors, as well as tools to teach staff how to manage residents and prevent incidents.
“Participants in our study who did the training reported better awareness, enhanced reflection on their current practice and improvement in sexual violence workplace management. The majority said they found the training relevant, practical and useful,” they said.
The study by Monash University’s Professor Joseph Ibrahim, Amelia Grossi, Daisy Smith, and Meghan Wright was published in the International Journal of Older Persons Nursing.
