This text is part of the special Acfas awards
For 35 years – so long before COVID-19 revealed the gravity of the situation in Quebec – Marie Beaulieu has been studying elder abuse. A professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Sherbrooke, this week she received the Acfas Thérèse Gouin-Décarie Prize for the Social Sciences.
We reached out to Professor Marie Beaulieu when she had just given a virtual conference in South Korea on elder abuse in the context of COVID-19 organized by the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse.
“We are not the only ones to have seen elder abuse during the pandemic: it has been in several countries, and COVID has made it possible to better measure the extent of the dysfunctions that were already present in the system and their consequences on the elderly ”, observes the holder of the Research Chair on mistreatment of the elderly, the only one in the world that focuses on this question.
Take an interest in victims
By completing a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in criminology at the University of Montreal, Marie Beaulieu was part of one of the first cohorts in the early 1980s to study victimology, thanks to Professor Micheline Baril. “At the time, criminology was mainly interested in criminals,” recalls the professor, who later worked as a research professional at the International Center for Comparative Criminology. In particular, she studies the feeling of insecurity in large cities. “I found it very interesting to see that it was higher among the elderly, whereas paradoxically, when you look at the statistics, they are less victims of crime than other age groups. “
The researcher was then invited to sit on the Committee on Abuse of the Elderly, created in the mid-1980s by Thérèse Lavoie-Roux, Minister of Health and Social Services in Quebec. At her side, we find in particular Marguerite Blais, at the time host of public affairs programs. Micheline Baril also, with whom she will seek the point of view of the elders. “We conducted a series of interviews in private seniors’ residences and in CHSLDs to produce a report, and that’s where I really fell in love with the dialogue with seniors. This is what convinced me to go do my doctorate on mistreatment in residential settings. “
Then, Mme Beaulieu spent nearly ten years at the University of Quebec at Rimouski, before accepting a position in 2001 at the University of Sherbrooke, where the Center for Research on Aging is located. She locates her research chair there and has the chance to work on the implementation of the doctoral program in gerontology, the only one offered in French in the world.
When in 2007, the Quebec government appointed for the first time in history a minister responsible for seniors – full time -, in this case Marguerite Blais, Marie Beaulieu submitted a brief on mistreatment. “The Minister conducted a broad public consultation on the living conditions of seniors,” she says. Certain concerns in my brief were echoed in the report subsequently published, which in 2010 led to the adoption of the government action plan to counter elder abuse. “
It subsequently produced numerous guides in the fight against mistreatment, based on research results, and used in Quebec and abroad.
Seniors at the heart of concerns
The living conditions of seniors have become an essential issue in Quebec and elsewhere. The World Health Organization (WHO) is also interested in the subject with its Decade for Healthy Aging (2021-2030). “I am co-directing a project with the WHO to synthesize the knowledge we have on mistreatment in order to make a global map, and my Chair is responsible for the“ prevalence of mistreatment ”and“ intervention ”components”, specifies the professor.
Its Chair is also working in Quebec on a project that aims to better understand how intersectoral work is done in situations of mistreatment. “For example, how do home support services, the police, the public curator and the various community organizations work together in the area of mistreatment? We are studying what is being done in different regions of Quebec to better understand this coordination, which is fundamental to avoid leaving seniors in the cold. “
And even if Marie Beaulieu has been close to mistreatment for 35 years, she remains optimistic. “I have seen a great evolution, although there is still a lot to do. COVID-19 has raised awareness of the issues. Seniors are full citizens who contribute to society and they have formed associations that speak out publicly. We must work not for the elders, but with the elders. “