WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins today announced that the U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a grant in the amount of $449,966 to Volunteers of America Northern New England (VANNE) in Brunswick to help fund programs that aim to stop abuse and sexual assault against older individuals.
“Elder abuse is a serious and disturbing problem around the country, and here in Maine,” said Senators Snowe and Collins in a joint statement. “Statistics estimate that there may have been as many as 8,000 cases of elder abuse in Maine last year, a majority of which go unreported. This funding will help Maine’s law enforcement community develop a program aimed at recognizing and addressing this problem.”
VANNE will collaborate with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the District Attorney Offices in Kennebec and Somerset Counties, Maine Association Against Sexual Assault, Maine Association to End Domestic Violence, and Elder Abuse Institute of Maine to provide training to law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judiciary to create a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing elder abuse within the criminal justice system in their communities. This project will pilot new national curricula focusing on elder abuse. Project partners will send participants to a train-the-trainer component to develop a multi-disciplinary training team who will be trained with the necessary skills to provide training to law enforcement on the local level. Prosecutors will attend a national training on prosecuting elder abuse cases. VANNE and its partners will engage in a review of, and put in place a body of, policies and protocols designed to aid in improving in the identification, investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of cases of elder abuse, exploitation and neglect, including domestic violence and sexual assault.
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