June 10, 2025 • 14 mins
On today’s episode of Keeping Ashland Healthy, The Boss highlights June as Elder Empowerment Month in Ashland County. A month of events and activities has been planned and is available for viewing and download here. David also spends time discussing signs of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and the importance of calling Ashland’s 24/7 anonymous Adult Protective Services at (419) 282–5000. Learn more about local services and events at www.ashlandmhrb.org or by calling the Board at 419.281.3139.
(Record Date: June 5, 2025)
(Record Date: June 5, 2025)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome. You're listening to the Keeping Ashland Healthy podcast, a
podcast production of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of
Ashland County, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Thanks for joining us, and welcome back to another episode
of Keeping Ashland Healthy. This is David Ross with the
Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashton County, Ohio, flying
solo today. No doctor Ashley in the house. Bear with me, audience.
I'll do my best. This month June twenty twenty five,
(00:31):
I wanted to shine a spotlight on Elder Empowerment Month.
This is something the Board has been involved with with
our partners for about a decade now. We started the
conversation around world Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and that is
something that we wanted to draw attention to. But our
Older Adults Behavioral Health Coalition in Ashton County said, you
(00:54):
know what, we need to do more than just bring
attention to elder abuse. So we built a whole month
and we put more of a positive spin around empowerment
because we feel strongly that empowering our seniors, just like
other age groups, is incredibly important for everyone's mental and
emotional health. So it has become June Elder Empowerment Month.
(01:20):
So June twenty twenty five is no exception. Doctor Ashley,
my partner here at the board, has done a fabulous
job pulling together a calendar of events for the entire
month of June. That's available at our website, Ashland MHRB
dot org. Go there and you can download that and
(01:42):
see that. But there is something going on in the
county at different agencies throughout the month, and we really
want folks to take advantage of as many of those opportunities.
I think all of them are at no cost. So
please take advantage of these opportunities to learn more about
how you can, if you're a senior yourself, how you
(02:04):
can be involved with empowerment activities. If you know somebody
who is sixty or up, which is kind of technically
the definition of a senior. Some of the audience may
not agree, And as I get closer and closer to
that category, I think maybe we should push it up.
Maybe maybe sixty is the new thirty. I've heard that said.
(02:25):
I don't know if that's true, But if you know
someone who maybe is a senior, maybe help them go
with them, make them aware of some of these events.
Just again, I can't get to them all on the calendar,
but there are a lot of fun things. Whether we're
talking about a magician at the Memorial Banchhell Meyer's Memorial
(02:50):
Banshell on the thirteenth and the fifteenth of June, that's exciting,
live music at South Street Grill on the sixteenth. All
our Golden Centers throughout the county are having special speakers
that we believe audiences wouldn't be interested in. Our Golden
(03:13):
Center programs are spread out throughout the counties, whether it's
a Brethren care or down in Loudonville or in Hayesville,
they're just all over the place. Mill Run has one
as well. There's a vintage truck reunion at the Fairgrounds
on the twenty seventh. Again, all sorts of events that
we wanted to draw your attention to. And just again
(03:35):
a shout out to our partners, Council on Aging, Catholic Charities, Appleseed, Dekada,
all these different partners that we have that are part
of the Older Adults Coalition. We really appreciate them partnering
with us for Elder Empowerment Month. But I do want
to draw attention to June fifteenth because that is actually
(03:56):
technically the World Elder Abuse Awareness a day, and I
just wanted to spend a little bit of time about
what's often called elder abuse. So I'll circle back to this,
but I want you to have the number at least
a couple of times. Locally, we do have an anonymous
hotline to report suspected abuse neglect, UH, an exploitation of
(04:20):
a senior And again sixteen over four one nine two
eight two five thousand. That's four one nine two eight
two five thousand, and that's our local reporting hotline anonymous.
And again, as I always tell folks when they call
me at the office, you know, if in doubt report,
let the experts UH figure out whether this is something
(04:42):
that needs to be investigated or not. But if you're
at all concerned, just call it. Doesn't do any harm.
If you're wrong, UH, the individual you know will explain
that to you, but allow the experts that work in
these field on a daily basis UH to sort that out.
Don't worry if you're if you're concerned, don't have date
I and just encourage you to call that number, but
(05:02):
again to maybe help you in that process. There are
several great resources out there. I wanted to bring your
attention to One from the National Center on Elder Abuse
says five things anyone can do to prevent elder abuse,
and again, these are five easy things. So this month,
maybe make it a point to learn these things, learn
(05:24):
the signs and I'm going to go over those. Prevent isolation,
call or visit loved ones and ask how they are
doing on a regular basis. And boyle boy, did we
see this emerged during the pandemic. We noticed a lot
of our seniors were isolating. As you might recall, during
the pandemic, we knew that our seniors were over represented
(05:44):
in terms of being at risk for the virus. So
there was a lot of isolation of seniors and all
of us really, but particularly our seniors during that time
and that really had deleterious effects on our seniors, the
fact that they were isolated and not connecting. So we've
been trying steadily since then, since we became aware of that,
is to prevent isolation. For all of this this is good,
(06:08):
good advice, but particularly with our seniors, So make sure
you're reaching out and connecting with them. Talk to friends
and family members about how we can all age well
and reduce abuse with programs and services through law enforcement.
There's a Seniors in Law Enforcement Together meeting today and
recording on a Thursday, and that occurs the first Thursday
of the month. Our SALT meetings over at the Sheriff's Annex.
(06:29):
Those are wonderful ways that we partner with law enforcement.
Community centers like I mentioned a Council on Aging and
the CROC and other organizations that are supportive sign up
to be a friendly visitor to an older person in
some communities that have that program. So if that's something
you're interested in, I would pursue that we have something
called a pen pal program where we match our seniors
(06:53):
with at risk youth in some of our schools and
they exchange letters. If you're interested in being a pen pal,
whether you're a senior or not, I would encourage you
to get a hold of Denise Conrad at Catholic Charities
and she would be how very grateful and help you
get matched with some pen pals. And then you know,
(07:16):
just I think it's important that you know some of
the signs of elder abuse, and I'm going to go
through these fairly quickly, but these are again basic things
that should make you possibly call that number these are things.
If you see them, then the more of the you
see of these things, the more suspicious you should be,
(07:37):
the more likely you should take action. So I'll go
through this list fairly quickly. But again, the more you
see of any of these signs, and there's physical, emotional,
behavioral and financial signs, the more you see of these,
the more likely it is that the person the senior
might be being abused or exploited in some way, and
you might want to get involved and call the number.
Physical signs dehydration, unusual weight loss, if you notice that
(08:04):
the senior's missing their their daily living aids, like they
don't seem to know where their classes are at, or
their walk or their medication. UH. If you notice any
unexplained injuries bruises, cut sores, torn stained or bloody underclothing,
again all suspicious signs that exploitation and or abuse might
be occurring. U. Unattended medical needs, if they're missing a
(08:27):
lot of their appointments that have been scheduled, any kind
of unexplained STDs that you might be aware of. UH.
In the emotional behavioral signs category, UH if you notice
any increased fear or anxiety in the senior. And again
where this is this is unusual, uh, not normal in
your relationship with them. If you've noticed a sudden isolation
(08:49):
from friends or family, you know that's a warning sign.
Unusual changes in behavior or sleep, or just general withdrawal
from normal activities. All of these things, like I said,
one or more of these should make you suspicious. You
might want to get involved, talk to the person, call
the number. And then finally, financial signs, fraudulent signatures on
(09:10):
financial documents, unusual or sudden changes. And they're spending patterns,
unpaid bills, so you know, particularly when you know this
is out of character for the individual. So if you
know that the senior is always up on these things,
you know that they don't spend money in certain ways,
and you notice radical changes, all these things should make
you suspicious. And I would encourage you them to use
(09:34):
the four one nine, two eight two five thousand number
and explain all these things. The nice thing about the
number and calling there, you can just explain them. This
is what I'm seeing, this is what i'm hearing, this
is what I'm not seeing not here. And if I'm
noticing they're not showing up, they're not taking care of
themselves the way they used to doesn't appear that they're
taking their medication or getting to their appointments. Just let
(09:56):
the person who answers the phone when you call the
four whe nine to eight two five thousand number, just
let them know what your concerns are. Again, as you
give them the information, they're the experts. They can sort
through through that and help you with next steps. But again,
the reality is about one in ten Americans sixty and
(10:17):
up have experience abuse. We know that without decent healthcare
and public resources, our population becomes more at risk for
abuse as we age. We know that the impact of
elder abuse is felt by people of all ages. You
can imagine if you find out your mom, dad, grandma,
and grandpa might be a victim of exploitation of abuse,
(10:37):
how that affects the entire family unit and friends. We
know that you know if a seniors being abused, that
it reduces their participation in the life in our communities
and we benefit by their participation. So it just creates
costs in all different levels that we all want to
work together to eliminate as best we can. A few
(10:59):
of the things before I sign off with the elder
abuse Awareness Month that I wanted to know about is
you know, podcasting. Obviously, I'm a fan of the podcast,
The Keeping National and Healthy podcast is one of many
many podcasts that are available to you. But there are a
couple podcasts that are actually specifically geared towards our seniors
that I don't know if the audience really knows about,
(11:21):
so I thought i'd give them a shout out. One
is called Aging in Full Bloom with Lisa Stocktail, and
that podcast is dedicated exclusively to all forms of wellness
as they relate to aging, So Aging in Full Bloom
with Lisa Stocktail and the other one is called Living
to one Hundred. The Living to one Hundred Club is
an exciting take on getting older. The Living to one
(11:43):
Hundred Club members turn aging on its head, knowing and
understanding age is only a number. So I thought both
of these might be worth your time if you know
you yourself for a senior, or you know somebody who
is a senior and maybe is interested in podcas casting. Again,
I enjoy podcasting so much because it's so easy. You
(12:05):
can listen to it while you're doing other things. You
could be outside inside. You know, you can walking in
one of our wonderful county parks. So I would encourage you,
if you're not familiar with those podcasts, to check those out,
but also to check out the Elder empower Month calendar
that's on the Mental Health and Recovery Boards website. We
(12:27):
encourage you to get involved this June with Elder Empowerment
Month and as it as it makes sense to call
that number the hotline, the twenty four to seven anonymous
hotline number, in the event that you're concerned that maybe
a senior that you know might be struggling, might be
(12:47):
being exploited or abused in some way. So the month
of June should be a month where we celebrate our seniors,
We support them, We recognize their incredible contributions to our families,
to our communities. We should be learning and growing from
(13:08):
the advice and the wisdom that they have to share.
So let's let's encourage them, let's help them, let's support
them and empower them this month. And I appreciate you
all listeners for helping me do this this month. So
until next time, please join me in keeping Ashland Healthy.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Keeping
Ashland Healthy podcast. The podcast is a production of the
Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, Ohio. You
can reach the Board by calling four one nine two
eight one three one three nine. Please remember that the
Board funds a local twenty four to seven crisis line
through Applese Community Mental Health Center. It can be reached
by calling four one nine two eight nine sixty one
(13:51):
one one. That's four one nine two eight nine sixty
one one one. Until next time. Please join us in
keeping Ashland healthy. S
Welcome. You're listening to the Keeping Ashland Healthy podcast, a
podcast production of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of
Ashland County, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Thanks for joining us, and welcome back to another episode
of Keeping Ashland Healthy. This is David Ross with the
Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashton County, Ohio, flying
solo today. No doctor Ashley in the house. Bear with me, audience.
I'll do my best. This month June twenty twenty five,
(00:31):
I wanted to shine a spotlight on Elder Empowerment Month.
This is something the Board has been involved with with
our partners for about a decade now. We started the
conversation around world Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and that is
something that we wanted to draw attention to. But our
Older Adults Behavioral Health Coalition in Ashton County said, you
(00:54):
know what, we need to do more than just bring
attention to elder abuse. So we built a whole month
and we put more of a positive spin around empowerment
because we feel strongly that empowering our seniors, just like
other age groups, is incredibly important for everyone's mental and
emotional health. So it has become June Elder Empowerment Month.
(01:20):
So June twenty twenty five is no exception. Doctor Ashley,
my partner here at the board, has done a fabulous
job pulling together a calendar of events for the entire
month of June. That's available at our website, Ashland MHRB
dot org. Go there and you can download that and
(01:42):
see that. But there is something going on in the
county at different agencies throughout the month, and we really
want folks to take advantage of as many of those opportunities.
I think all of them are at no cost. So
please take advantage of these opportunities to learn more about
how you can, if you're a senior yourself, how you
(02:04):
can be involved with empowerment activities. If you know somebody
who is sixty or up, which is kind of technically
the definition of a senior. Some of the audience may
not agree, And as I get closer and closer to
that category, I think maybe we should push it up.
Maybe maybe sixty is the new thirty. I've heard that said.
(02:25):
I don't know if that's true, But if you know
someone who maybe is a senior, maybe help them go
with them, make them aware of some of these events.
Just again, I can't get to them all on the calendar,
but there are a lot of fun things. Whether we're
talking about a magician at the Memorial Banchhell Meyer's Memorial
(02:50):
Banshell on the thirteenth and the fifteenth of June, that's exciting,
live music at South Street Grill on the sixteenth. All
our Golden Centers throughout the county are having special speakers
that we believe audiences wouldn't be interested in. Our Golden
(03:13):
Center programs are spread out throughout the counties, whether it's
a Brethren care or down in Loudonville or in Hayesville,
they're just all over the place. Mill Run has one
as well. There's a vintage truck reunion at the Fairgrounds
on the twenty seventh. Again, all sorts of events that
we wanted to draw your attention to. And just again
(03:35):
a shout out to our partners, Council on Aging, Catholic Charities, Appleseed, Dekada,
all these different partners that we have that are part
of the Older Adults Coalition. We really appreciate them partnering
with us for Elder Empowerment Month. But I do want
to draw attention to June fifteenth because that is actually
(03:56):
technically the World Elder Abuse Awareness a day, and I
just wanted to spend a little bit of time about
what's often called elder abuse. So I'll circle back to this,
but I want you to have the number at least
a couple of times. Locally, we do have an anonymous
hotline to report suspected abuse neglect, UH, an exploitation of
(04:20):
a senior And again sixteen over four one nine two
eight two five thousand. That's four one nine two eight
two five thousand, and that's our local reporting hotline anonymous.
And again, as I always tell folks when they call
me at the office, you know, if in doubt report,
let the experts UH figure out whether this is something
(04:42):
that needs to be investigated or not. But if you're
at all concerned, just call it. Doesn't do any harm.
If you're wrong, UH, the individual you know will explain
that to you, but allow the experts that work in
these field on a daily basis UH to sort that out.
Don't worry if you're if you're concerned, don't have date
I and just encourage you to call that number, but
(05:02):
again to maybe help you in that process. There are
several great resources out there. I wanted to bring your
attention to One from the National Center on Elder Abuse
says five things anyone can do to prevent elder abuse,
and again, these are five easy things. So this month,
maybe make it a point to learn these things, learn
(05:24):
the signs and I'm going to go over those. Prevent isolation,
call or visit loved ones and ask how they are
doing on a regular basis. And boyle boy, did we
see this emerged during the pandemic. We noticed a lot
of our seniors were isolating. As you might recall, during
the pandemic, we knew that our seniors were over represented
(05:44):
in terms of being at risk for the virus. So
there was a lot of isolation of seniors and all
of us really, but particularly our seniors during that time
and that really had deleterious effects on our seniors, the
fact that they were isolated and not connecting. So we've
been trying steadily since then, since we became aware of that,
is to prevent isolation. For all of this this is good,
(06:08):
good advice, but particularly with our seniors, So make sure
you're reaching out and connecting with them. Talk to friends
and family members about how we can all age well
and reduce abuse with programs and services through law enforcement.
There's a Seniors in Law Enforcement Together meeting today and
recording on a Thursday, and that occurs the first Thursday
of the month. Our SALT meetings over at the Sheriff's Annex.
(06:29):
Those are wonderful ways that we partner with law enforcement.
Community centers like I mentioned a Council on Aging and
the CROC and other organizations that are supportive sign up
to be a friendly visitor to an older person in
some communities that have that program. So if that's something
you're interested in, I would pursue that we have something
called a pen pal program where we match our seniors
(06:53):
with at risk youth in some of our schools and
they exchange letters. If you're interested in being a pen pal,
whether you're a senior or not, I would encourage you
to get a hold of Denise Conrad at Catholic Charities
and she would be how very grateful and help you
get matched with some pen pals. And then you know,
(07:16):
just I think it's important that you know some of
the signs of elder abuse, and I'm going to go
through these fairly quickly, but these are again basic things
that should make you possibly call that number these are things.
If you see them, then the more of the you
see of these things, the more suspicious you should be,
(07:37):
the more likely you should take action. So I'll go
through this list fairly quickly. But again, the more you
see of any of these signs, and there's physical, emotional,
behavioral and financial signs, the more you see of these,
the more likely it is that the person the senior
might be being abused or exploited in some way, and
you might want to get involved and call the number.
Physical signs dehydration, unusual weight loss, if you notice that
(08:04):
the senior's missing their their daily living aids, like they
don't seem to know where their classes are at, or
their walk or their medication. UH. If you notice any
unexplained injuries bruises, cut sores, torn stained or bloody underclothing,
again all suspicious signs that exploitation and or abuse might
be occurring. U. Unattended medical needs, if they're missing a
(08:27):
lot of their appointments that have been scheduled, any kind
of unexplained STDs that you might be aware of. UH.
In the emotional behavioral signs category, UH if you notice
any increased fear or anxiety in the senior. And again
where this is this is unusual, uh, not normal in
your relationship with them. If you've noticed a sudden isolation
(08:49):
from friends or family, you know that's a warning sign.
Unusual changes in behavior or sleep, or just general withdrawal
from normal activities. All of these things, like I said,
one or more of these should make you suspicious. You
might want to get involved, talk to the person, call
the number. And then finally, financial signs, fraudulent signatures on
(09:10):
financial documents, unusual or sudden changes. And they're spending patterns,
unpaid bills, so you know, particularly when you know this
is out of character for the individual. So if you
know that the senior is always up on these things,
you know that they don't spend money in certain ways,
and you notice radical changes, all these things should make
you suspicious. And I would encourage you them to use
(09:34):
the four one nine, two eight two five thousand number
and explain all these things. The nice thing about the
number and calling there, you can just explain them. This
is what I'm seeing, this is what i'm hearing, this
is what I'm not seeing not here. And if I'm
noticing they're not showing up, they're not taking care of
themselves the way they used to doesn't appear that they're
taking their medication or getting to their appointments. Just let
(09:56):
the person who answers the phone when you call the
four whe nine to eight two five thousand number, just
let them know what your concerns are. Again, as you
give them the information, they're the experts. They can sort
through through that and help you with next steps. But again,
the reality is about one in ten Americans sixty and
(10:17):
up have experience abuse. We know that without decent healthcare
and public resources, our population becomes more at risk for
abuse as we age. We know that the impact of
elder abuse is felt by people of all ages. You
can imagine if you find out your mom, dad, grandma,
and grandpa might be a victim of exploitation of abuse,
(10:37):
how that affects the entire family unit and friends. We
know that you know if a seniors being abused, that
it reduces their participation in the life in our communities
and we benefit by their participation. So it just creates
costs in all different levels that we all want to
work together to eliminate as best we can. A few
(10:59):
of the things before I sign off with the elder
abuse Awareness Month that I wanted to know about is
you know, podcasting. Obviously, I'm a fan of the podcast,
The Keeping National and Healthy podcast is one of many
many podcasts that are available to you. But there are a
couple podcasts that are actually specifically geared towards our seniors
that I don't know if the audience really knows about,
(11:21):
so I thought i'd give them a shout out. One
is called Aging in Full Bloom with Lisa Stocktail, and
that podcast is dedicated exclusively to all forms of wellness
as they relate to aging, So Aging in Full Bloom
with Lisa Stocktail and the other one is called Living
to one Hundred. The Living to one Hundred Club is
an exciting take on getting older. The Living to one
(11:43):
Hundred Club members turn aging on its head, knowing and
understanding age is only a number. So I thought both
of these might be worth your time if you know
you yourself for a senior, or you know somebody who
is a senior and maybe is interested in podcas casting. Again,
I enjoy podcasting so much because it's so easy. You
(12:05):
can listen to it while you're doing other things. You
could be outside inside. You know, you can walking in
one of our wonderful county parks. So I would encourage you,
if you're not familiar with those podcasts, to check those out,
but also to check out the Elder empower Month calendar
that's on the Mental Health and Recovery Boards website. We
(12:27):
encourage you to get involved this June with Elder Empowerment
Month and as it as it makes sense to call
that number the hotline, the twenty four to seven anonymous
hotline number, in the event that you're concerned that maybe
a senior that you know might be struggling, might be
(12:47):
being exploited or abused in some way. So the month
of June should be a month where we celebrate our seniors,
We support them, We recognize their incredible contributions to our families,
to our communities. We should be learning and growing from
(13:08):
the advice and the wisdom that they have to share.
So let's let's encourage them, let's help them, let's support
them and empower them this month. And I appreciate you
all listeners for helping me do this this month. So
until next time, please join me in keeping Ashland Healthy.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Keeping
Ashland Healthy podcast. The podcast is a production of the
Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, Ohio. You
can reach the Board by calling four one nine two
eight one three one three nine. Please remember that the
Board funds a local twenty four to seven crisis line
through Applese Community Mental Health Center. It can be reached
by calling four one nine two eight nine sixty one
(13:51):
one one. That's four one nine two eight nine sixty
one one one. Until next time. Please join us in
keeping Ashland healthy. S
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