[00:00:00] Thank you for joining us for Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness. Greetings, friends, and thank you for joining us today. We are concluding our four-part mini series on Elder financial Abuse. Our series started with a guest from our fraud prevention team who helped shed some light on types of scams targeting seniors that he’s seen over his 20 year career.
Then we welcome a local high school student that is making it his mission to help combat fraud and help educate the community. We followed that up with an expert in the field of mental health to help us understand how we can support our aging population from falling victim to scams. Each of those guests has re.
Adult Protective Services or APS in their work to help mitigate elder financial abuse. And we’re excited today to welcome Yolanda Carcamo, who holds a Master’s in social work and is an Adult Protective Services supervisor for the [00:01:00] Community Response Unit for the Alameda County Division. Yolanda, thank you so much for making the trip to join us for this finale on fraud prevention.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. All right, so tell us about a PS or Adult Predictive Services and your role there. Yeah, so Adult Protective Services is a state mandated program, and our intention is to investigate and remedy or reduce danger to dependent and elder adults that are at risk of a variety of different types of abuse, such as physical, sexual, mental, or financial abuse.
In California, every county has their own adult protective services agency. And those services are available free for any elder or dependent adult, regardless of income. So I’ve been with a PS since 2018, and I began my career as a community response social worker, where I responded to reports of suspected elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
In 2022, I promoted to a supervisor and I’ve spent time supervising our community [00:02:00] response social workers, our intake social workers, and spent some significant time launching our internship. Program for MSW graduate students, our quality assurance efforts. And during that time I also was in charge of our community outreach and engagement, which aims to provide training to mandated reporters and bring awareness of elder abuse to the community, including clients, caregivers, and their loved ones.
So Patelco and its employees are considered mandated reporters for elder financial abuse. Who else is responsible for reporting? Yeah, so in California, anyone who has any full or intermittent responsibility for the care or custody of an elder or dependent adult, whether or not they’re paid for it, they might be considered a mandated reporter.
So financial institutions. Law enforcement, emergency services like the fire department or EMS, , medical providers, so those in the hospitals, the clinics, hospice, home [00:03:00] health, pretty much anyone who might come in to contact with an elder or dependent adult throughout the course of their duties at work.
We also receive reports from anyone in the public, including family, friends, concerned neighbors, church members. Gotcha. So we’ve been talking about elders and kind of the definition of that and how it’s changing a little bit. And when we first met, you had talked about this silver tsunami and this new recognition of an elder and a policy that was recently changed to allow advocacy and support for persons as young as 60.
Can you share why this change is so significant? Yeah, sure. So the silver tsunami is a term that’s been used to describe the rapid aging and population. Shift of the large wave of baby boomers. So those that are kind of born through 1946, up to 1964, they’re reaching retirement age. And so as the generation gets older, it’s creating a significant demographic shift in the US with many other countries as well.
So in [00:04:00] California, we’ve recognized that shift and. Kind of in a preparation to embrace ourselves for that increase in the older adults and to make sure that we have the infrastructure for this wave of the population growing. We’ve looked at our existing policies and regulations, and in June of 2021, AB 1 35 was passed, and so that lowered the a PS reporting age to 60.
Previously it was 65, so in January of 2022, this officially ruled out and a PS began accepting cases for folks that were 60 and up. And so we found this to really be helpful in trying to prevent and stop abuse at a younger age. So financial abuse, that’s what we’re talking about today. So if a PS can get.
Kind of involved at 60. Mm-hmm. To be able to maybe stop what’s going on, educate that person. If maybe they fall victim to a scam, the hope is that they become educated. It kind of puts some barriers and protective factors in place. So it’s not continuing up until [00:05:00] 65, where previously we couldn’t get involved until then.
So hopefully within that timeframe we can help save some folks money. We know that elder abuse can happen rapidly and people can lose their entire life savings. It’s detrimental to their overall health and wellbeing. So the earlier intervention can hopefully prevent us needing to be out there longer term and hopefully improve that person’s quality of life overall.
Gotcha. Have you seen a difference since that change in 2022 to now since that change? Absolutely. We’ve definitely received an influx of reports and catching those things at 60 can definitely make that difference. So. Early on, we don’t always notice if somebody maybe has cognitive changes. Mm-hmm. Or if someone has maybe befriended a person who’s vulnerable and started to take advantage of them.
So having those earlier conversations really allows us to bring family in, get other supportive factors. Talk about important things like power of attorney documents. Mm-hmm. What are someone’s wishes, especially earlier on, before [00:06:00] any cognitive deficits happen where they maybe can’t speak for themselves at some point.
Gotcha. And you’ve supervised social workers for many years. Walk us through what happens when a report of a suspected elder financial abuse is filed. Sure. So once we receive the report of suspected elder financial abuse, each report goes through our intake screening process. So an intake social worker, trained social worker, just as well as our community response.
Social workers will review and screen the report, and they’re looking for two things. The first thing we’re looking at is do they qualify for our services in the county? So they would need to be a resident of Alameda County. They would need to meet that age requirement. So either they’re 60 years or older, or they’re independent adult.
So they have some type of physical or mental limitation that’s preventing them from being able to protect themselves and then they have to live in an independent setting. Okay. So folks who maybe are in skilled nursing facilities, they would be better suited for someone like the ombudsman. So once [00:07:00] they’ve screened that this person meets eligibility, we also are determining how soon do we need to respond.
Mm-hmm. So a PS has two in-person response timeframes. We have immediate same day, and then we have a 10 calendar day window. Financial abuse typically will fall into that 10 calendar day window, and our workers go out unannounced. So once it’s assigned to a community response worker, they’re doing some research, they’re maybe making phone calls, trying to call that reporting party, figure out maybe if there’s any other additional information.
Mm-hmm. They’re looking to see if we have history of this person, and then they’re going out and making that visit with two goals. They wear two hats we like to say. So they’re investigators and they’re social workers. Mm-hmm. So they’re going out trying to establish a relationship with that person, make contact with them, develop some rapport, and then also looking a little bit deeper into things, is this person really being exploited?
What evidence can we kind of come up with? We’re trying to interview everyone that’s involved and then also provide education to that person or their loved one on how to prevent [00:08:00] further abuse, or how to kind of stop what’s going on. Have they contacted their bank? Have they gone and maybe put restrictions on their account?
If they’re communicating with scammers, can we get them to stop? Mm-hmm. If they are maybe kind of involved in a romance scam or a grandparent scam where somebody feels that they have a loved one that is being threatened or maybe is incarcerated and they’re paying folks for bond and different things, we’re just educating them about those overall scams.
In cases of identity theft, we’re working to help them flag their social security number, contact credit bureaus, make sure that they’re safeguarding all of their assets, and then thinking about the future, how do we prevent this from happening again? And what supportive measures can we put in place? A PS isn’t really intended to be a longer term support.
Mm-hmm. So often, once we’ve connected that person to immediate resources, we’re closing that case. Anytime that we confirm that someone is being exploited, we’re cross reporting, which is essentially notifying law enforcement that we’ve [00:09:00] concluded our investigation, we’ve confirmed that some type of abuse has taken place, and they may wanna take a peek at it and maybe investigate it a bit further.
Gotcha. And we might guess that that might be tough if emotions are involved. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Especially if like family is considered. Mm-hmm. To be maybe the alleged abuser. And so it’s really important that our workers go out and remain neutral. Mm-hmm. We really don’t go out assuming that everything in the report is fact and we really wanna kind of get to know the situation, talk to even the person that’s accused of possibly exploiting, sometimes there’s misunderstandings sometimes.
They didn’t get it right at the time of the report, and we really just wanna dig a little bit further and see how we can help. You mentioned when we spoke too, that oftentimes your team is attempting to stop the bleeding when you’ve determined that financial abuse is occurring. How is this problematic for you guys , once the abuse has begun?
Yes. So when we talk about stopping the bleeding, it means that [00:10:00] typically someone’s accounts have been infiltrated. Their assets have already started to be depleted, and so that’s problematic because often financial loss is irreversible. Mm-hmm. It’s very rare that we’re able to get this person’s money back.
It’s very rare that we can. Often tracked down maybe the scammer or the person that exploited those funds and that can immediately maybe destabilize someone’s life. Sure. And their ability to afford basic needs essentials. It’s put housing in jeopardy where people aren’t able to afford their rent or their mortgage, and that in return can cause so much emotional distress.
Mm-hmm. It can start to impact someone’s physical health and. It can cause a lot of shame and embarrassment. Absolutely. Often our clients feel that, you know, they’re at fault or they feel like they were stupid for falling for something, and it’s definitely not the case. And so when we’re going out there and we’re trying to educate them and assure them that anyone can fall victim to scams, they’re very [00:11:00] sophisticated now.
And the important part is once it’s recognized that we’re able to put factors and, and different things in place so we can stop further loss. We just held an event here at Patelco to bring awareness to our team and the community about the work that your organization is doing to combat elder financial abuse.
Adult Protective Services was represented along with representatives from the FBI and local sheriff’s department. Why is it important that these agencies collaborate with one another and evolve the community? Yeah, the collaboration is just so important. It’s essential in our community. So every agency has a different lens and a different focus.
And with a PS, we’re really going in there to assess someone’s vulnerability and their safety, and we wanna connect them to supportive services. And that often includes law enforcement because law enforcement has an ability to investigate and prosecute criminal activity, especially when it comes to financial exploitation scams.
Financial institutions [00:12:00] like Patelco are often the first to notice suspicious patterns mm-hmm. Of transactions, and they can play a role in being able to detect and prevent, more and further abuse. I’ve received so many reports where a banker was fortunately able to connect with that older adult and stop them from even proceeding with that transaction.
They took that time out of their day to ask and inquire, well, what’s going on? You seem a little rushed, you seem a little nervous. Mm-hmm. Somebody is on the phone. Why don’t we take a step away and talk about this? And often it’s revealed that scammers will use these tactics to scare older adults or confuse them, make threats to them or even to their family.
And when we have someone that’ll stop. Kind of what they’re doing and ask those questions, they’re able to prevent it from happening. They notify us. We go out and we make that contact, give more education and support that person. So it’s really a collaborative effort and it sends a strong message that elder abuse is not okay.
It’s not a private, [00:13:00] isolated issue. Mm-hmm. And that there’s multiple agencies and factors in place that can assist older adults and try to prevent this from continuing to happen. Yeah. Now more than ever, Patelco is really focused on training and emphasis. To help mitigate this. And for our listeners out there that are not mandated reporters, what can they do to help prevent elder financial abuse?
Yes, they often play such a critical role. You see your loved ones, you see them on a more regular basis. You make contact with them so you can look out for the signs that something may be going on, whether it’s a family member, a neighbor, or a friend. So stay connected. Social isolation is one of the biggest risk factors for abuse.
So regular check-ins with your loved one can prevent them from, from maybe making contact with a scammer. It gives them a safe space to talk and be able to really work through maybe what’s going on and look out for red flags. So if there’s sudden changes in financial behaviors. Maybe a new friend mm-hmm.
Who comes in, wants management of [00:14:00] money, maybe having someone sign documents they’re not familiar with. Maybe this person has unpaid bills and it’s a bit confusing because that’s never been a problem before. That might be a sign that something’s wrong. Mm-hmm. So having those conversations, encouraging older adults to have safeguards in place like power of attorneys, trusted financial advisors, setting up account alerts.
Talking to a PS, maybe asking questions, being that safe. Go-to. It can really, really stop things from maybe progressing or even happening. And then when something has happened, report those concerns. You don’t have to be a mandated reporter to contact a PS and make a difference, or even law enforcement, they usually can also be made anonymously.
Mm-hmm. So even if you don’t wanna share information yourself and identify yourself. You can still give a PS or law enforcement a heads up to be able to make contact with that older adult. That is such a good thing to know and we appreciate you guys so much for coming down here [00:15:00] and help educate our employees and help educate the community.
Our listeners out there, if you want to learn more education, we do have. Materials on our website for you to browse@patelco.org. Visit our fraud center there to educate yourself more. A PS also has a ton of resources that you can find at alameda county social services.org. That’s Alameda County social services.org.
If you need to file a report of concern. You can also visit report to aps.org and choose your county on that website or call 5 1 0 5 7 7 3500 here locally. Seniors can also find more, information and assistance, by calling 5 1 0 5 7 7 35 30 and get a live social worker on the line. Again, that’s the senior information and assistance line.
At 5 1 0 5 7 [00:16:00] 7 35 30. Yolanda, we wanna thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us today and being, and making the trip down to be with his here today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Well, that’s gonna do it folks, for our finale on Elder Financial Abuse. That’s gonna do it for today on small talks for big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness.
We’ll see you next time. Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.