Bullying of senior citizens familiar to professionals who work with them in Pioneer Valley.
A video of four seventh-grade boys viciously engaging in verbal bullying and touching 68-year-old Karen Klein, a bus monitor in New York State, has resulted in them being suspended for a year from their public school. They will attend an alternative education program.Bullying knows no boundaries.
The recent headline story of 68-year-old Karen Klein, the bus monitor who was verbally harassed recently by a group of middle school students in Greece, N.Y., makes that fact painfully clear. In a 10-minute video of Klein that went viral on the Internet, students can be heard calling her “fat” and cursing and taunting her.
“It became evident to all of America and the world that bullying has no age limit,” said Gwynnetta J. Sneed, of Springfield, founder of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Foundation in memory of the Springfield sixth-grader who took his life in April of 2009 after repeated school bullying.
“The torment the bus monitor received is no different than the bullying which happens in our schools and on our playgrounds. Parents must teach their children to not only respect their teachers and classmates, but they must also be taught to respect the bus drivers, bus monitors, and most importantly their elders. We are all in this together, and we can help combat bullying one incident at a time, one bully at a time.”
The incident with Klein calls attention “elder bullying,” behaviour familar to professionals who work with seniors in the Pioneer Valley. During the 22nd Western Massachusetts Area Agency on Aging Elder Conference, held at Holyoke Community College on May 22, keynote speaker Marsha Frankel addressed the topic, “When older adults are facing bullying situations.”
Asked about the New York incident, Frankel, the clinical director of senior services for the Jewish Family & Children’s Services in Waltham, said the students involved “demonstrated a distressing lack of empathy.”
“They gave little thought or caring to the impact of their behavior on this older woman,” said Frankel of what she observed on the on-line video.
At the conference, Frankel told those professionals who gathered that social bullying among elders is a significant problem that negatively impacts older adults’ well-being.
“It is estimated by researchers in the field that approximately 10 to 20 percent of older adults experience bullying,” Frankel said. She defined elder bullying as behavior that is verbally or physically aggressive or anti-social in nature.
“It’s is behavior that intentionally causes another person injury or discomfort,” she said. Bullying, which is differentiated from bad behavior related to dementia or mental illness, happens wherever older adults congregate, she said, be it in senior centers, senior housing, assisted living and nursing homes or in churches, synagogues and gyms.
Sometimes it is the elders themselves who are doing the bullying; sometimes, Frankel said, it is those caring for them, or even family members.
“Some people have been bullies their entire life while others may engage in bullying in their later years as an attempt to gain control at a time when they might feel increasingly powerless,” she said.
What needs to happen, she said, is education.
“Interventions need to be targeted at creating a safe environment in which bullying is not tolerated (similar to the ongoing efforts in schools),” Frankel said. “Interventions need to be developed that address organizations, the bullies and those who are bullied.”
Referring back to the recent bus monitor situation, Frankel said that in “approximately 50 percent of cases, bullying ceases when a bystander ( child or adult) intervenes”
“Children who engage in bullying behavior are at risk and are often found to be depressed and/or involved in other problem behaviors that need to be addressed simultaneously with interventions to end the bullying,” Frankel said.
A 2010 anti-bullying law aimed at school bullying and signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick in the wake of the suicides of Carl and 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who was bullied at South Hadley High in case that brought criminal charges against six teenagers, defines what bullying is, requires teachers and staff to report incidents of bullying to principals and administrators for investigation, and schools are required to give teachers and students training in anti-bullying preventing and intervention.
Laurie A. Cassidy, executive director of the West Springfield Council on Aging, took part in an open panel discussion at the conference, during which health care professionals shared stories of the elder bullying incidents they had witnessed.
One participant who works in an assisted living facility told of one elder client verbally abusing another during an activity at the center.
“When the issue was brought to her supervisor’s attention, it was not acted upon,” Cassidy said, noting that that was frustrating for the caregiver. “The participant felt she didn’t have the support of her supervisor and didn’t know what else to do, and the behavior was still ongoing.”
Cassidy told participants about the importance of documenting all bullying incidents with the date, time, location and persons involved and the importance of addressing bullying incidents with direct supervisors.
“If the supervisor is not available or won’t take action, then the worker needs to be prepared to address the issue with upper management,” she said. “It’s important to note that direct line staff are advocates for those who are unwilling or incapable of speaking for themselves, so when you don’t speak up, you are just as culpable as the bully.”
Cassidy said staff also need to be trained on how to react to elder bullying, and if necessary, they need to be afforded opportunities to role play on the subject so that they are better prepared to react.
“When it comes to bullying, the credo ‘no drama’ should prevail because the message you want to convey is that bullying will not be tolerated nor condoned,” she said.
Frankel said that when seniors and their families are looking for a nursing home, that they observe the culture of respect that is demonstrated by staff and residents there.
“Sit in the lobby or dining room and observe interactions,” she said. “Observe dining room behavior, and check for policies that discourage cliques and exclusions.”
To view video of Karen Klein being harassed, go to http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/21/us/new-york-bullied-bus-monitor/index.html