Gabbarli Lives in a Shoe: Working Towards Wellbeing for Older Aboriginal People

7 INTRODUCTION 9 About the Research 10 What Are Practitioners’ Concerns About Abuse of Older Aboriginal People? ...... 14 The Social and Cultural Dynamics of the Mistreatment of Older Aboriginal People 21 Implications for the Training of Aboriginal Health Workers 24 USING THIS REPORT 26 SECTION TWO 27 WHAT’S HAPPENNING LOCALLY 27 Introduction 27 Epidemic of Abuse 28 Physical (including destruction of property) 29 Financial 30 Emotional 31 Gendered nature of mistreatment 33 Child related 34 Beliefs regarding older people’s continuing responsibility for children and their children .. 34 Distrust of mainstream services 35 Fear of payback for reporting abuse 36 No effective norms for responding to ‘out of control’ consumption of drugs and alcohol ... 38 Everyday risk of violence, theft and destruction 38 Compounded by mental health issues in family and unpredictable danger to older people. 40 Culture Dynamics 40 Fragmentation in the reproduction of cultural values across generations 40 Unintended consequences and impact of mainstream services on vulnerability of older people 42 A continuing gap and/or clash of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal expectations as to how older people live. 46 Leadership 47 Government expectations as to addressing the abuse of older people 47 Aboriginal politics and the politics between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal organizations and between Federal/ State and Local levels of government 49 Initiatives that work 50 WHAT’S SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE PRACTICE? 55 Opportunities to work with older people and families 55 Start where people ‘are at’ 55