- Published:
- Monday 17 June 2019 at 5:13 pm
Jeanette Lane represents the voice of seniors and older people on the Victim Survivors' Advisory Council (VSAC), providing insights into how family violence impacts older people in our community.
A passionate community advocate for people who experience elder abuse, Jeanette is helping to shape a family violence system which better responds to older Victorians.
Jeanette is also a member of the Victorian Elder Abuse Advisory Group, representing the Mornington Peninsula Shire's Peninsula Advisory Committee for Elders (PACE).
Her interests cover older peoples’ housing, resourcing volunteers, providing information forums (including about elder abuse) and Aboriginal issues.
Jeanette said: “My interest in elder abuse occurred some years ago when I met a man, who during conversation, told me that his wife had died the previous year and his son and family had move in to 'look after him'.
"They were living in the house and he was now living in the back yard in a shed which had no amenities. He wasn't happy with his situation but didn't know what he could do. It made me recognise the need to make information on elder abuse available to the public.”
As a member of PACE, Jeanette introduced a program of forums on elder abuse which run at locations across the Mornington Peninsula to raise awareness of this form of family violence in the community.
She has also been instrumental in supporting community events during the Victoria Against Violence campaign. This coincides with the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign every November, to shine a spotlight on family and gender-based violence.
Jeanette was awarded the Council on the Ageing (COTA) Senior Achiever Award at the 2014 Victorian Senior of the Year Awards. She was recognised at the 2014 Mornington Peninsula Shire Delys Sargeant Age-Friendly Awards and was awarded a Senior of the Year Award by the Lions Club of Victoria in 2018.
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