In the present master’s thesis, I researched the operation of various professional services in central part of Slovenia, which encounter cases of violence against old people in their work. I was interested in how professional services act in cases of violence against old people, how often they encounter it, what protocol of dealing with the victim they use, whether professionals are specially trained for dealing with this kind of violence, how are different professional services connected, what problems they face in resolving violence against old people, how the legislation on this subject is regulated and what are their proposals for easier or more quality work in the area of dealing with violence against old people. I decided for qualitative research as I wanted to obtain verbal descriptions and with them, detailed information about the topic of my research, instead of numerical data. In the first part of my master’s thesis, I presented theoretical concepts about aging population, stereotypes and discrimination of old people, about family and an old people, about forms of violence and types of abuse experienced by old people, I described the causes of violence against them and why they remain silent about it and do not report it. I also presented the legislation in the area of dealing with violence against old people, the procedure of dealing with violence at the social work centers and a few words on social work with the elderly in general. The empirical part presents the results of a survey in which eleven professionals from the field of social welfare, health care and the police participated. I found that violence against the elderly is most encountered by the police professionals and social workers, slightly fewer cases are handled by non-governmental organizations, the least frequent are cases reported by the health services. Compared to other age groups, there seems to be fewer reported and observed cases of violence against old people, as it remains undetected, unreported and hidden behind four walls. Violence is most often reported by other people, such as relatives, neighbors and by institutions, sometimes the violence is reported by the victims themselves, but these cases are rarer. All kinds of abuse are used against the elderly, with the most cases of psychological, economic and physical violence. There are also more and more cases of neglect. Violence is most often initiated by their family members. There are many reasons for this and often violence relates to caring for an old person. Old people do not report violence or report it quite late. There are many reasons for this, among which are feelings of shame, fear, guilt, and often the lack of opportunity to seek the necessary help. The basic task of professional services is the protection of the victim, the search for safe accommodation of the victim, plan of assistance, the provision of psychosocial assistance and support, and connecting with other institutions that can help protect the victim. There seems to be a lack of education and training on subject of violence against old people. Society and institutions still do not report cases of violence often enough, so the services cannot act. The big problem in solving cases of violence against old people is that we lack adapted accommodation capacities for the elderly, which, in addition to safety, would also provide the health care or everyday care that many elderly people need. Based on the obtained results, I wrote down proposals that should be considered as guidelines for possible changes and improvements in the work of professional services that deal with cases of violence against old people.
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