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Montreal Touts Police Training to Spot Elder Abuse

Montreal police are currently testing a new program that would require all officers to be trained in how to spot and handle elder abuse. The program has succeeded in catching multiple cases of elder abuse, and researchers hope for more success in the future.

The Montreal police department hopes to share its efforts with other departments across the country. Sooner than later, they hope, other departments will begin implementing similar training.

CBC News discusses the program in detail.

Montreal police are implementing a new model to train officers to combat elder abuse and are hoping to share the results of their research with other Canadian law-enforcement agencies.

As of May 5, all front-line Montreal police officers will receive training on how to identify and follow up on signs of mistreatment of seniors, even in non-criminal cases.

The intervention model was developed over the last three years by the city’s police force and the provincially funded Research Chair on Mistreatment of Older Adults at the Université de Sherbrooke, which received a federal grant to study the issue in 2013.

In a departure from previous protocol, officers who spot signs of mistreatment are required to pull seniors aside for gentle questioning and make a report even when nothing criminal has occurred.

The cases are then investigated by community relations officers or referred to community or social services.

Instead of training a small unit of officers to specialize in the mistreatment of seniors — as many forces do — this model calls for an across-the-board approach where all officers and responders are given training sessions, guides for intervening and a reference package that includes a list of local community resources.

The Montreal police are creating a manual that can be shared with other police forces to help end elder abuse.

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