7 recommendations from committee working to prevent abuse of AZ vulnerable adults

An Arizona legislative committee has approved a set of recommendations for how best to protect vulnerable adults from abuse.

A panel of subject matter experts and lawmakers made several recommendations to the Legislature at a hearing on Wednesday.

Among those is creating an online database for reports of abuse that all relevant agencies can access.

“It's easy on paper, but these are big things. These are big ideas, and these are things that really will help inefficiencies amongst all those involved when they're cross, you know, the cross training, cross investigating,” Sen. Tim Dunn (R-Yuma) said.

One of the main issues the workgroup is considering is how best to inform residents of their rights as they go through cognitive decline.

Dunn said he’ll introduce bills in next year’s legislative session to make the seven recommendations law.

Dunn said although he believes there are only a few “bad apples” in the adult care industry, there’s a need for better rules covering staff training and interagency communication.

“I think we're one to make sure that we, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel, but we're trying to figure out, how do we make the wheel better?” he told the other members of the Vulnerable Adult System Study Committee.

Other recommendations include extending the study committee, collecting data on vulnerable adult evictions and creating a registry for paid care providers.

Dunn became involved in preventing abuse of vulnerable adults back in 2019. The year before, a patient living in a Phoenix care facility with intellectual disabilities was assaulted and impregnated by a male nurse.

Then-House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, appointed Dunn to serve on a committee to craft protections for adults in vulnerable states of physical or mental health.

“We just need to keep working on it,” Dunn said. “You can make some meaningful changes over time.”