February Newsletter:
SOLUTIONS FOR CARE - ADULT PROTECTIVE SERVICES (APS)
At Solutions for Care, we are committed to addressing calls of concern regarding our older adults and people with disabilities within the communities we serve.
SFC is a designated APS agency, through the Illinois Department on Aging, that investigates Abuse, Neglect, Financial Exploitation, and Self-Neglect for individuals 18-59 with a documented disability and anyone 60 and above.
These services are provided to residents within our service area, which include Proviso Township, Berwyn, and Cicero, all of which are in Suburban Cook County. Solutions for Care investigates an estimated 400 cases annually, with Financial Exploitation being the most frequently reported. All Adult Protective Services are confidential and free of charge.
If you or someone you know may need assistance please call us at 708-447-2448.
Types of Abuse that APS Investigates
- PHYSICAL ABUSE: Causing the infliction of physical pain or injury to an eligible adult.
- SEXUAL ABUSE: Touching, fondling, sexual threats, sexually inappropriate remarks, or any other sexual activity with an eligible adult when he or she is unable to understand, unwilling to consent, threatened, or physically forced to engage in sexual behavior.
- EMOTIONAL ABUSE: Verbal assaults, threats of maltreatment, harassment, or intimidation intended to compel the eligible adult to engage in conduct from which he or she wishes and has a right to abstain, or to refrain from conduct in which the eligible adult wishes and has the right to engage.
- CONFINEMENT: Restraining or isolating, without authority, an eligible adult for other than medical reasons, as ordered by a physician.
- PASSIVE NEGLECT: Another individual’s failure to provide an eligible adult with the necessities of life including, but not limited to, food, clothing, shelter, or medical care because of failure to understand the eligible adult’s needs, lack of awareness of services to help meet needs or a lack of capacity to care for the eligible adult.
- WILLFUL DEPRIVATION: Deliberate denial of medications, medical care, shelter, food, therapeutic devices, or other physical assistance to a person, who because of age, health, or disability, requires such assistance and thereby exposes that person to the risk of physical, mental, or emotional harm because of such denial: except with respect to medical care or treatment when the dependent person has expressed an intent to forego such medical care of treatment and has the capacity to understand the consequences.
- FINANCIAL EXPLOITATION: The use of an eligible adult’s resources by another to the disadvantage of that adult or the profit or advantage of a person other than the adult.
- NEGLECT: A condition that is the result of an eligible adult’s inability, due to physical or mental impairments, or both, or a diminished capacity, to perform essential self-care tasks that substantially threaten his or her own health, including providing essential food, clothing, shelter, and health care; or obtaining goods and services necessary to maintain physical health, mental health, emotional well-being, and general safety.
- ABANDONMENT: This means the desertion or willful forsaking of an eligible adult by an individual responsible for the care and custody of that eligible adult under circumstances in which a reasonable person would continue to provide care and custody. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to mean that an eligible adult is a victim of abandonment because of health care services provided or not provided by licensed health care professionals.
