It’s been more than three years since the Connecticut Protective Services for the Elderly (PSE) was last audited and, so far, only 85% of the audit recommendations have been partially or fully implemented. According to a follow-up report, the Department of Social Services (DSS), which oversees PSE, does not have enough resources to address all the recommendations.
The Services for the Elderly Program exists to protect people who are 60 or older from various types of maltreatment, including abuse, neglect, exploitation, and abandonment.
Around one in ten adults ages 60 or older are abused, neglected, exploited or abandoned, according to estimates from the Connecticut Coalition of Elder Justice. Between 2016 and 2019, the number of maltreatment complaints investigated by PSE increased by 29% and, consequently, the number of cases each worker had rose from 93 to 122.
In August 2021, the Auditors of Public Accounts reviewed how the PSE prevents elderly maltreatment, or identifies, investigates and intervenes when abuse occurs. The auditors also evaluated how well protective services coordinated and communicated with agencies that are responsible for enforcing elderly protection.
Auditors made 47 recommendations, which include creating a limit for the number of cases that a DSS social workers can investigate at the same time, requiring the Department of Public Health (DPH) to investigate non-critical complaints within 45-days of them being reported—which was already the required time frame—and updating its case management systems.
In January, the Auditors of Public Accounts provided an update on PSE’s progress.
Since the audit was published in 2021, PSE has followed most of the recommendations, including changing statutes so that mandated reporters who suspect elder maltreatment submit a report within 72 hours of that suspicion and sending PSE program supervisors to make sure that social workers made in-person contact with elders every 30 days.
However, 13 recommendations were only partially implemented and seven were not implemented at all.
Out of the seven recommendations that were not implemented, three of them would require amending the General Statutes. Two of those recommendations involved adding additional requirements for mandated and non-mandated reporters when they suspect abuse, which DSS does not believe is “within its purview.” The third recommendation was to require employers to document when their employees complete mandatory training to detect potential fraud, exploitation and financial abuse. PSE is considering “action steps” to implement this one.
The other four are: limiting the caseload of DSS social workers; amending the PSE manual to accept all first responder reports of elder self-neglect, regardless of hospital admission status; the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman should identify reasons for the decline in volunteer residents’ advocates and create a plan to increase the number of volunteers; and the PSE, as well as other departments, join a task force to evaluate moving from a protective service for the elderly model to an adult protective services model.
DSS does not have the resources to limit the number of cases a social worker can work on at once, nor identify the reason for the decline in volunteer residents’ advocates. DSS decided to not accept all first responder reports for patients who were hospitalized for self-neglecting. As for the task force, DSS officials are willing to be on a taskforce, but don’t have the resources to run one independently. The General Assembly would need to create one, and has not done so.
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