S/he has not yet filed, and I was just hoping anyone who HAD filed could share some perspective I could pass along. In the meantime of course I have been helping to locate and refer the relative to the relevant local resources. The relative seems pretty clear (for now) on the several boundary issues and the reporting duty at hand.
Thanks, all.
I almost wish I AM the relative, because as a pastor's wife embedded in this rural community I know the general social services territory HERE pretty well. Been's as this is in another state, and a municipality with many agencies and layers to sort through, it's not so "simple."
[sitting on a lot of feelings] The community values HERE are so different-- so appreciative of its elders in particular-- damn, it's so hard to translate that out to folks in other areas (such as my relative). HERE-- the intervention would be a done deal, with as much help for the "abuser" as for the abused, woven right into the fabric of community relationships and nonversations. THERE-- it's just going to be different. It's frustrating not to know that territory as well as I know ours, here, and to know that someone's old dearie isn't being seen as the vital and treasured old soul they must surely be.