Funds will provide legal services to victims and train service providers in Westchester County and the Bronx.

WHITE PLAINS, NY, May 16, 2006 – The Pace Women’s Justice Center, located in White Plains at the Pace Law School campus, has received a $15,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation to provide additional legal services to victims of elder abuse and to train service providers in Westchester County and the Bronx on elder abuse issues.

The expansion of the Center’s Elder Abuse Prevention Program includes:

• • Providing civil legal representation, consultation, advocacy, referrals and appeals, and assisting with public benefits applications, housing matters, consumer problems, long term care problems, and family court and other services.

• Training nurses’ aides, social workers, and others who work with the elderly to recognize the signs of abuse and to be aware of available services, and conducting community outreach and training with similar goals for groups like churches and senior centers.

The Center’s attorneys meets with victims or people who suspect they may be victims at the Center, in the five “safe centers” recently set up by the county’s Department of Senior Programs and Services, and in their homes if they are too frail to leave.

More information is available from the center at http://law.pace.edu/bwjc/about.html or 914-422-4069. The center’s helpline number is 914-287-0739.

It is estimated that between 1.5 million - 2 million elderly adults are abused each year in the US, not just physically but by financial exploitation and identity theft. Vulnerable victims are often targeted by landlords, tenants, relatives, and strangers. The expansion of the Pace Women’s Justice Center’s Elder Abuse Prevention Program will help to make sure elderly victims of abuse receive all the services they need to remain safe.

History

The Pace Women’s Justice Center began addressing the legal needs of the elderly in 2000, using a grant from the Westchester County Department of Senior Programs and Services to conduct Elder Law Seminars throughout the county. Center attorneys recruit pro-bono lawyers to conduct the seminars at senior citizen centers and libraries, covering topics like estate and financial planning, health care planning, and the various forms of abuse.

The Center has pioneered a number of legal training programs in domestic violence and elder abuse. Since it started in 1991, the Center has trained police departments in Westchester County and throughout New York State on domestic violence issues and the identification of elder abuse.

The Center also works with home health care agencies and runs a helpline, funded by the Westchester County Office for Women. Victims, home health care agencies and concerned neighbors and friends can call the helpline to find out how to help victims and to get legal advice. As part of its coordinated community response to elder abuse, the Pace Center has partnered with the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale in its newly opened Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Center for Elder Abuse Prevention, which provides elder abuse victims with emergency short-term housing, legal advocacy and support services.

The Center received a similar grant from the Westchester County Department of Senior Programs and Services in 2005. It also makes its legal services available in the five “safe centers” the department recently opened.

 
About the Verizon Foundation

Verizon delivers technology that touches life. The Verizon Foundation uses that technology and its financial resources to improve literacy and K-12 education; help families victimized by domestic violence; and improve the delivery of health care. In 2005, the foundation awarded more than $74 million in grants to charitable and nonprofit agencies in the United States and abroad. The foundation also supports Verizon Volunteers, one of the largest employee volunteer programs in the United States responsible for 2 million hours of community service since 2000 and $35.6 million in combined contributions to nonprofits in 2005 alone. For more information on the foundation, visit www.verizon.com/foundation.

 
About Pace Women's Justice Center

The Pace Women’s Justice Center is a non-profit organization based at the Pace School of Law in White Plains that annually conducts trainings for thousands of judges, law enforcement officers, attorneys, and law students. Each year the Center provides direct representation to more than 1,500 victims of domestic violence and their children. Annually, the Center conducts more than 100 training programs on domestic violence, elder abuse and sexual assault, and other topics. The Center has produced public service announcements for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women’s Office concerning domestic violence, has written judicial training manuals, and has published many articles on gender violence. The Center helpline (914-287-0739) answers over 1,400 calls per year. http://law.pace.edu/bwjc/about.html 

Founded in 1976, Pace University School of Law has nearly 5,000 alumni/ae throughout the country. It offers full- and part-time day and evening JD programs on its White Plains, N.Y., campus. The School also offers the Master of Laws in Environmental Law and in Comparative Legal Studies. The School, which has one of the nation's top-rated environmental law programs, also offers the SJD program in that field. The School of Law is part of a comprehensive, independent and diversified University with campuses in New York City and Westchester County. www.law.pace.edu 

Pace is a comprehensive, independent university with campuses in New York City, Pleasantville and White Plains, N.Y., and a Hudson Valley Center at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, N.Y. More than 14,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lubin School of Business, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, School of Education, Lienhard School of Nursing and Pace Law School. www.pace.edu