The Brandl-Crockett Alliance: Combining Forces to Advocate for Older Women

An intergenerational pairing creates a powerful collaboration in the fight for justice for older women. 

Call it a May-October match made, quite possibly, in heaven. Bonnie Brandl and Cailin Crockett, leaders in the cause to end violence and abuse against older women, may be an unlikely intergenerational pairing, but in fact they are a powerful combination whose collaboration has enriched the field of elder justice.

Bonnie Brandl

Bonnie, age 56, is an advocate and social worker, is a pioneer who has worked at End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin for 25 years – since Cailin was in preschool. She is the founder and director of NCALL, the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life and the author of numerous publications in the field. Just this past June, NCALL and the Office on Violence Against Women published her comprehensive 42-page report, “Working with Older Survivors of Abuse: A Framework for Advocates.”

Cailin Crockett

Cailin, who earned a summa cum laude degree from UCLA and an MPhil from Oxford, is a supernova in the making. At age 28, she has already worked as a Policy Specialist for the first White House Advisor on Violence against Women in Vice President Biden’s office; been a Presidential Management Fellow at the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS); and currently wears two hats, as Special Assistant for Gender Policy and Elder Rights at HHS and as a Gender Specialist on loan from HHS to advise on aging  for the United Nations Development Program. In May 2016, the World Bank and other funders published a 33-page “Brief on Violence against Older Women,” for which Cailin was the lead writer. The document is a chapter in the Bank’s online “Violence Against Women and Girls Resource Guide.”

Both publications are aimed at advocates and providers, Bonnie’s nationally and Cailin’s internationally in the developing world. Both are resource-rich, with links to video, print, and online support services and information.  

These two champions for older women’s rights formed an instant friendship two years ago that has since blossomed into a fruitful collaborative relationship. They first met over the phone when Cailin, upon entering the field, was given Bonnie’s name as a sine qua non resource for her work. They bonded when it emerged that each had personally been close to older women who were survivors of domestic violence– in Cailin’s case, her grandmother. Since that first call, they have been co-authors, organized several events together at the Department of Justice and the White House, and have been each other’s advocate and sounding board.  As Cailin put it, “We are constantly in touch with each other, to keep each other posted on new ideas and developments and to get each other’s thoughts.”

It’s a coincidence that their most recent resource guides were both published in Spring 2016. Bonnie says she spent about two and half years planning and writing her guide, which was inspired by the 2014 publication of the Elder Justice Roadmap, a massive collaborative undertaking under the auspices of the US Department of Justice. Bonnie was part of the team that produced this first framework for tackling the highest-priority challenges in elder abuse prevention and prosecution. She kicked off her spinoff project with a roundtable that included Cailin. “If I’m really honest,” Bonnie says, “I’ve been planning this guide for 25 years, though there was no way I could have written it even five years ago because I’ve met so many older survivors, advocates and other experts who’ve helped me during this period. It’s really an effort by the field for the field.”  (Click to Continue)

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The Brandl-Crockett Alliance: Combining Forces to Advocate for Older Women