With the support of the European Commission’s Daphne III Programme, AGE worked a project with a network of 11 partner organisations to develop:
- A European Charter on the rights of older people, and women in particular, who are dependent on a family member or carer, or are need of long-term care or assistance.
- An Accompanying Guide or ‘toolkit’ addressing each of the rights expressed in the Charter, explaining what they concretely mean and how they can be enforced.
Only a few examples of good practices were introduced in the accompanying guide. The whole list of good practices is available here.
On the 17th November, the EUSTACEA project held its final conference in the European Parliament. More information is available in Latest news.
The project ended in December 2010 but AGE successfully applied to a new project to prevent elder abuse and improve quality care, the WeDO Project – a European Partnership for the Wellbeing and Dignity of Older people. The project (2010-2012) aimed at creating a lasting and growing partnership of organisations committed to improve the wellbeing and dignity of older people. It developed an EU quality framework for long-term care services. You can find more information in https://wedo.tttp.eu
The EUSTACEA Project (2008-2010)
The partners of the project were based in Netherlands (ANBO), Germany (BIVA), France (FNG), in Italy (FIPAC), Greece (Hellas 50+), Slovenia (Mestna zveva upokojencev Ljubljana), United Kingdom (NIACE), Sweden (SPF), Czech Republic (Zivot 90) and Belgium (Commune de Saint-Josse), and the European Organization E.D.E. The project run until December 2010, and it delivered the European Charter and its Accompanying Guide.
The European Charter is available in 13 languages, you can download them all on our website :
Translations without layout:
The Accompanying Guide is available in 9 languages :
You can find a list of related documents and interesting links here. If you wish to have more information on the project, please feel free to contact Borja Arrue at borja.arrue@age-platform.eu
What is the Daphne programme ?
The European Commission’s Daphne programme began as a one-year initiative back in 1997. The programme aims to combat violence against women, children and young people in Europe. Since its beginnings, it has brought together the experience of hundreds of individuals and organizations and has broken new ground in research and action to protect Europe’s most vulnerable citizens. For more information on Daphne III, see the European Commission’s webpages.
The charter and toolkit
Building on existing national initiatives such as the “Charter of Rights of People with dependency” adopted in 2007 by the German Government and the French “Charter of Rights of People in Need of Long-Term Care and Assistance”, the project partners developed a “European charter of rights of older people, in particular older women in need of long-term care and assistance”.
Drawing on successful and innovative initiatives from across the EU, the accompanying guide adresses the following questions: What is elder abuse? How can it be spotted? Why does it happen and how can it be prevented? And when it does happen, how should it be treated? Through consultation that will involve older people themselves, recommendations will be developed for European, national and local authorities, service providers, older people’s organisations and potential victims.
The strategy : approach and implementation
The project adopted a broad-ranging definition of abuse encompassing intentional violence and mistreatment but also neglect. The charter not focus exclusively on older women and address issues that are relevant to both sexes. Younger groups benefit too because prevention and awareness-raising of potential victims must start at a much younger age: older people should be empowered as early as possible to protect themselves against abuse. The project attempted to cover all forms of elder abuse drawing on the expertise of partners in tackling abuse in institutions, community and home care settings, financial crimes and scamming for instance.
A series of national workshops was organised by the partners. Each workshop addressed a specific dimension of elder abuse (elder abuse in formal/informal care settings, financial abuse, awareness campaigns, the role of local authorities, carers’ issues and so on). During the workshops, partners gathered input from a variety of stakeholders: older people themselves, public authorities, service providers, and experts in the field. A steering group, comprising representatives of each of the partner organisations met several times a year to lead on project development.
Long term impact
The project has helped raise awareness of the need to protect older vulnerable people in today’s context of rapid demographic ageing.
Through the deliverables (Charter and Guide) the project has helped develop tools that will be very useful to raise awareness of what can be done at European and national level to fight elder abuse. Thanks to the project and on-going policy work, the issue of elder abuse and quality of long-term care for the elderly was supported by successive EU presidencies (CZ, SE, ES, BE) and various national governments, and local public authorities are interested to promote it and use it for their own work. The European Charter is now used as a reference document at EU and national level. It was mentioned in a recent EC (DG EMPL) call for a pilot project on elder abuse and by the European Parliament during its hearing of the Hungarian Presidency.
The project helped build consensus among a wide range of stakeholders. It builds support for the European Charter to become a reference document for the development of a European Partnership for the wellbeing and dignity of older people, a follow-up project called WeDO, which will now seek to build of the EUSTACEA project to develop tools to improve quality of care for elderly as a mean to fight elderabuse. This new pilot project funded by DG EMPL gathers 18 partners from 12 different countries. It seeks to contribute to the on-going debate on the voluntary European Quality framework for social services developed by the Social Protection Committee and will make recommendations on how this framework can be applied to long-term care. The new project will seek to set up a European Partnership of stakeholders committed to combat elder abuse and to promote the wellbeing and dignity of older dependent and frail persons through quality tools based on our EUSTACEA Charter. The long-term impact of the EUSTACEA project is ensured through this new project which will end in November 2012 (more information at www.wedo-partnership.eu)
Latest news
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To subscribe: send a mail to maude.luherne@age-platform.eu
Project news
Final conference of the EUSTACEA project on 17 November in the European Parliament : a huge success !
Around 100 people attended the EUSTACEA’s project final conference organized in the European Parliament thanks to the support of Ms. Lynne MEP. This conference marked the end of the EUSTACEA project and the beginning of the dissemination of the European Charter of the rights and responsibilities of older people in need of long-term care and assistance, translated in 13 languages. The project also developed an accompanying guide that explains how the charter can be implemented, which will soon be finalized. The conference gave the time for a high amount of participants from different backgrounds (institutions, NGOs, Researchers) to speak. Ms. Lynne MEP and co-chair of the Intergroup on Ageing and Intergenerational solidarity hosted and chaired the meeting. Ms. Lynne worked hard to get the European Parliament to adopt a resolution on ‘long-term care for older people’, that calls on the European Commission to launch a green paper on the fight against elder abuse and safeguarding older people’s rights and to develop a code of conduct in care homes. DG EMPL represented by Sven Matske and Davor Dominkus from the Social Protection Committee gave an update on the latest developments of the European Commission and of the Council on the improvement of quality care, such as the voluntary European Quality Framework for Social Services of General Interest. The European Charter was welcomed by the participants and the next steps were discussed thanks to a lively debate in which intervened for example Giovanni Lamura (INRCA), Rob Anderson (Eurocarers) or the association Respect Seniors (Belgium). This conference was also a success due to the announcement by DG EMPL that the project proposed by AGE Platform Europe for a European Partnership for the wellbeing and dignity of older people, which will run from December 2010 to November 2012, was accepted. AGE Platform Europe and the 18 partners of this new project are delighted by these good news and will begin to work together on it from January 2011, and which will try to adapt the European Quality framework for Social Services to long-term care. More information is available here: https://www.age-platform.eu/en/wellbeing.
EUSTaCEA 10th Steering group meeting in Brussels, Belgium
All the partners gathered in Brussels for this 10th and last steering group meeting, in AGE office. A seventh version of the accompanying guide was given to the participants, including all the comments and remarks of the partners and of AGE members. The partners discussed for example the different target groups of the guide, the gender dimension or the good practices included. The debates were numerous and the discussions were lively concerning the 10 different articles of the guide and the introduction. The accompanying guide will have to be finalized by the 15th October, and will be sent for the designer. The final conference of the project will take place on the 17th November 2010 in the European Parliament, where the Charter and the accompanying guide will be disseminated. The partners finally discussed the follow-up of the project, with the answer to the call for proposals from DG EMPL concerning a pilot project on elder abuse. AGE Platform Europe proposed to be the coordinator and answered to the call, on the basis of a partnership of 18 partners from 12 different countries. The results will be known at the end of the year.
Other projects’ news
ABUEL Project : International conference on “Quality of Life and Maltreatment of the elderly in Europe”, 28th June 2010, Madrid.
More information at: https://www.elderlyineuropemadrid2010.com/
More information on elder abuse? The ABUEL project developed a list of relevant documents in the field: https://www.abuel.org/documents.html.
Other European Projects on elder abuse
- Breaking the taboo 2 (started January 2010) – Daphne programme (new website!)
- ABUEL
- Intimate partner violence & older women (started January 2009) – Daphne programme
- AVOW – Prevalence study of violence against older women – Daphne programme
- MILCEA
- EUROPEAN – The European Reference Framework Online for the Prevention of Elder abuse and Neglect
Other projects in Europe
Be involved ! You can help the EUSTaCEA partners sending some good practices in your respective countries, as institutions that develop some innovative means to be closer to the older person’s choice. You can send it to Maude Luherne at maude.luherne@age-platform.eu
Final Conference of the EUSTACEA project
A huge success!
Around 100 people attended the EUSTACEA’s project final conference organized in the European Parliament thanks to the support of Ms. Lynne MEP. This conference marked the end of the EUSTACEA project and the beginning of the dissemination of the European Charter of the rights and responsibilities of older people in need of long-term care and assistance, translated in 13 languages. The project also developed an accompanying guide that explains how the charter can be implemented, which will soon be finalized. The conference gave the time for a high amount of participants from different backgrounds (institutions, NGOs, Researchers) to speak. Ms. Lynne MEP and co-chair of the Intergroup on Ageing and Intergenerational solidarity hosted and chaired the meeting. Ms. Lynne worked hard to get the European Parliament to adopt a resolution on ‘long-term care for older people’, that calls on the European Commission to launch a green paper on the fight against elder abuse and safeguarding older people’s rights and to develop a code of conduct in care homes. DG EMPL represented by Sven Matske and Davor Dominkus from the Social Protection Committee gave an update on the latest developments of the European Commission and of the Council on the improvement of quality care, such as the voluntary European Quality Framework for Social Services of General Interest.The European Charter was welcomed by the participants and the next steps were discussed thanks to a lively debate in which intervened for example Giovanni Lamura (INRCA), Rob Anderson (Eurocarers) or the association Respect Seniors (Belgium). This conference was also a success due to the announcement by DG EMPL that the project proposed by AGE Platform Europe for a European Partnership for the wellbeing and dignity of older people, which will run from December 2010 to November 2012, was accepted. AGE Platform Europe and the 18 partners of this new project are delighted by these good news and will begin to work together on it from January 2011, and which will try to adapt the European Quality framework for Social Services to long-term care.
Documents of the conference
Charlotte Strümpel, Austrian Red Cross
- Breaking the taboo project: https://btt.roteskreuz.at/
- Charlotte Strümpel, Austrian Red Cross, presentation
Angela Cluzel, EDE
- EDE website : https://www.ede-eu.org/
- Angela Cluzel presentation
- ESN website: https://www.esn-eu.org
Gary Fitzgeraldz, Action on elder abuse
