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With the support of the European Commission’s Daphne III Programme, AGE is working on 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.
The partners of the project are 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 will run until November 2010.
The final version of the European Charter is now available !
You can download it here :
As an organization or local authority, you can show your support to the Charter and the name of your organization will be added to the List of signatories supporting the Charter.
You can find the final version in Italian, Slovenian, Greek, Swedish, Czech, Romanian and Dutch:
The french version still needs some minor wording changes, but here is a draft version :
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 Maude Luherne at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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 will draft 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 toolkit will address 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 adopts 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 attempt 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 is organised by the partners. Each workshop addresses 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 gather 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 meet twice a year to lead on project development.
Long term impact
The project will stress the importance of awareness-raising among all those who are involved in the care and protection of older people, and the empowerment of potential victims to protect themselves. At the end of the project, the Charter and toolkit will be presented to EU and national policy makers. They will be disseminated across the EU and taken up by AGE members as awareness-raising tools that can be used to encourage the adoption of strong guidelines at EU level, as well as national and local strategies to prevent and tackle elder abuse. Indeed, convinced of the importance of high quality social services of general interest for the fulfillment of the EU values and objectives, the European Commission is working to develop common EU “voluntary quality guidelines” for social services including elder care. Our charter and toolkit will feed into this process. We will encourage stakeholders to support the implementation of these guidelines, and develop ways to assist victims, setting up reporting mechanisms to the relevant authorities for instance.
Last Updated on Monday, 19 July 2010 09:06
