A/HRC/30/43 122. Residential councils that include older persons should be established in institutional care settings to promote the active participation of these persons in the organization of their own daily activities. 123. States should establish quality monitoring and effective and transparent accountability mechanisms for public and private care settings, which take into account older persons’ assessments and evaluations. This requires establishing clearly defined benchmarks, such as codes of practices and conduct, and where conformity can be assessed and verified by sufficient and well-trained staff both in home and institutionalized care settings. 124. Quality care is also correlated with the working conditions and well-being of care workers. In order to ensure that care workers provide care that meets the emotional and physical needs of older persons with compassion and dignity, and in order to attract people into the care sector and retain them there, better training opportunities, including academic qualifications, should be provided. This, in turn, will also help portray care work as a profession with good career prospects. 125. Given the multidimensionality of abuse and violence against older persons, there is a need to adopt a comprehensive, integrated and inclusive approach involving different disciplines, organizations and actors, as well as older persons themselves, in identifying appropriate responses to abuse and violence. 126. States should adopt legislation and policies to prevent, detect, investigate, prosecute and criminalize elder abuse. Procedures must be in place for reporting abuse and violence, including in public and private care settings. The Independent Expert calls on States to pay particular attention to protecting victims from retaliation, especially in cases where the abuse or violence is committed by a family member, relative or is the result of an intimate relationship. 127. Collective prejudice against older people and general public awareness influence the way in which abuse and violence is perceived, recognized and reported. States should devise an awareness-raising strategy regarding the issue of abuse of and violence against older persons. Awareness-raising campaigns should not only target older persons themselves, but also their social environment, such as family, friends and caregivers. They should also target employees in homes and institutions, doctors, nurses and caregivers and the broader communities. 128. Information about remedies, referral pathways and available services should be made widely available to older persons and the broader public domain, and particularly the social environment of older persons. Dissemination of information to older persons about their rights could help to further improve disclosure about abusive experiences and make more effective the implementation of laws related to elder abuse when such laws exist. Caregivers and law enforcement personnel should receive training to recognize and handle cases of abuse and violence against older persons. 129. States should develop ombudsman-like positions inside institutionalized care settings that could improve older persons’ care and quality of life and denounce cases of abuse and violence, including health-care fraud. 130. Older persons have different patterns of disease presentation from younger adults, they respond to treatments and therapies in different ways and they frequently have complex social needs that are related to their chronic medical conditions. States should therefore ensure the availability of geriatric and gerontological specialists in different types of care services and facilities. There is a need to further promote geriatric medicine to ensure that a sufficient number of qualified geriatrics are available to meet the needs of an ageing society. 20