Event set to call attention to elder abuse

Staff report

Youngstown

Mahoning County’s Job and Family Services Department has set up an event to call attention to World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, which is Friday.

The JFS’ Adult Protective Service Unit will recognize outstanding individuals who have contributed to helping to promote awareness of elder abuse from 9 to 10 a.m. that day at Oakhill Renaissance Place, 345 Oak Hill Ave.

Abuse-awareness day involves activities to bring greater recognition of mistreatment of older adults wherever they live throughout the world and to highlight the need for appropriate action.

It is intended to give abuse and neglect of older adults a global relevance that will sustain and move prevention efforts forward in the years to come, according to a JFS press release.

JFS officials are asking the public to wear purple Friday “to show the world you care about ending elder abuse and neglect.”

The first awareness day in 2006 involved several hundred organizations at governmental, international, national, regional, local, community and neighborhood levels on every continent in the world.

The day is in support of the United Nations International Plan of Action, which recognizes the significance of elder abuse as a public health and human-rights issue.