Thematic Panel 8
Institutional violence and protect human rights of older people: Quality procedures
Conveners:
Ana Paula Gil PhD. Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lisbon, Portugal and Isabella Paoletti PhD. Centro di Ricerca e Intervento Sociale, Perugia, Italy
Discussant:
Professor Emeritus Elisabet Cedersund, Division Ageing and Social Change Department of Social and Welfare Studies, Linköping University, Sweden
Institutional violence is a central issue for long-term care policy at a time when an increasing number of older people is requiring care in institutions. Institutional violence is defined as every act or omission committed against an older person, in the frame of an institution to threaten his/her own life, his/her economic security, physical and psychological integrity, his/her freedom or compromising seriously the development of his/her personality (WHO,2002). Institutional violence includes physical, psychological, sexual and financial abuse and acts of intentional neglect. Recently European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (2017) recognised that European countries should facilitate the ongoing monitoring of the human rights situation of older person in long-term care. Quality of care leads to questioning the effectiveness of the monitoring systems of quality care control in residential sector. How can we tell which institutions provide good care or bad care? What are the methods and indicators to identify good and bad care in practices? We encourage contributions based on quality and quantitative methodologies, ethnography studies, case studies, survey studies etc. that investigate all aspects of violence against older people and in particular institutional violence, quality control in institutional care settings and human rights protection. In particular we aim to attract studies on impacts of assessment tools of quality care in different countries or interventions practices, that is, studies that exemplify how monitoring care system can ensure older people protection from poor quality care and mistreatment, and facilitate the ongoing monitoring of the respect of human rights of older person in long-term care, that is, in services, such as nursing-homes, home care and day care centres. This panel calls for special attention on the monitoring of human rights of the older persons by policy makers, researchers and professionals.