Safeguarding Staff’s Experience of Cases of Financial Abuse.

Financial abuse of older people is an important issue for all safeguarding staff, particularly social workers, who are often tasked with complex case management. Financial abuse can take many forms and can occur remotely to the older person and without their knowledge. However, research in this area is limited. This study was undertaken to understand how safeguarding staff in Northern Ireland manage these cases and the challenges experienced. Fourteen safeguarding staff, including social workers and nurses, participated in two focus groups. Using thematic analysis, four areas of concern were identified. These were capacity issues, relationships, structural context and rural versus urban context. The paper concludes that changes are needed in a number of areas such as social and cultural norms, legislation, policy and practice in order to enable social work practitioners to manage cases of financial abuse of older people in a more comprehensive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]