Australia is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, where over 1 in 4 Australians was born overseas. And over the next two decades, the 65+ age group is expected to grow faster, hitting about 23% of Australia's population.

Elder abuse presents with great complexity and there are several intersecting factors to consider when identifying, responding and preventing elder abuse within all communities. Reporting of elder abuse in family settings remains low and within culturally and linguistically diverse communities, reporting and/or highlighting the occurrence of elder abuse is even lower.

As the diverse communities age, services, service users and service providers need to build capacity to provide a culturally informed, culturally safe and culturally robust response to elder abuse within our communities.

In this session, we will unpack what elder abuse can look and feel like within culturally diverse communities. We will get a better understanding of how to "apply" cultural intersectionality in practice when responding to or identifying elder abuse.

This session will support a more robust understanding of different facets of elder abuse and provide opportunity to reflect on our own unconscious biases which may hinder our ability to provide a safer space for our clients. Finally this session will give people an opportunity to develop a culturally informed language to better engage with diverse communities when working with them in this space.