Domestic abuse against older adults—What can s42 case files tell us?

Bows, Hannah; Bromley, Paige; Penhale, Bridget

Abstract

The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to conduct safeguarding enquiries whenever abuse of an adult with care and support needs is suspected or confirmed (Section 42 enquiries) and provides a useful data source for examining domestic abuse (DA) against older people in this context. This article presents data from a qualitative content analysis of 172 enquiries into abuse of an adult aged sixty or over carried out by a large safeguarding partnership during 2019. By looking across cases, we identified around one-third of potential DA cases had not been identified as such and this was particularly the case in non-partner family abuse. Key findings include older adults experiencing DA are equally, if not more, likely to be abused by an (adult) child/offspring, most adults at risk were female and suspects were male, and of particular note was that polyvictimization was more common than single type abuse. We consider the implications for social work policy and practice concerning risk and safeguarding enquiries.

Citation

Bows, H., Bromley, P., & Penhale, B. (online). Domestic abuse against older adults—What can s42 case files tell us?. The British Journal of Social Work, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf074

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 27, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Apr 16, 2025
• Deposit Date: Apr 17, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 17, 2025
• Journal: The British Journal of Social Work
• Print ISSN: 0045-3102
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-263X
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf074
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3792772