May 13, 2013
On October 11, 2012 the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius held the inaugural meeting of the Elder Justice Coordinating Council. The Secretary was joined at the meeting by Attorney General Eric Holder, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), and representatives of other member Federal Departments and Agencies. The meeting included four panels of nationally-recognized, non-Federal government experts who presented testimony on issues of paramount importance in addressing elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
At the staff level, the Council is supported by the Elder Justice Interagency Working Group (EJWG). Since the October meeting, the EJWG has worked to organize, analyze, and prepare proposals for the Council on priority elder abuse issues requiring the attention of the federal government, based on the expert panel testimony and white papers drafted by the experts. The Working Group has also coordinated in preparing a report of Federal Accomplishments (PDF, 191KB) in elder justice since 2010.
On May 13, 2013, Assistant Secretary for Aging Greenlee was joined by Acting Associate Attorney General Tony West in convening the 2013 Spring Council meeting. The agenda (PDF, 126KB) for this meeting included EJWG member presentation of proposals for federal action to address elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Nine (9) proposals (PDF, 102KB) were presented to the Council. Information on the proposals was organized to provide the Council with a summary of:
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Purpose or desired outcome of the proposal;
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Current status in the area, including brief background on work federal agencies may already be involved in; and
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Next steps for analyzing the proposals for implementation.
View the full presentation (PDF, 2.61MB)
In developing implementation strategies for each of the proposals, the Working Group will incorporate comments and directions expressed by the Council, as well as consider input from the advocates and stakeholders. You may submit ideas or suggestions on implementing any of the 9 proposals by emailing the Council.
Watch video of the meeting
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