Adult Protective Services Colorado: How to Report Elder Abuse

You've noticed unexplained withdrawals from your parent's bank account. A new "friend" has been driving them to the ATM daily. The caregiver hired to help with meals is pressuring your parent to sign financial documents. Something is very wrong — and you need to know exactly who to call and what will happen next.

Colorado's Adult Protective Services (APS) investigates reports of abuse, neglect, and exploitation of at-risk adults aged 18 and older. Understanding how the system works is critical — both for protecting your parent and because APS intersects directly with the guardianship and power of attorney process.

What Qualifies as Elder Abuse in Colorado

Colorado law defines several categories of mistreatment:

Physical abuse — non-accidental physical contact that results in pain, injury, or impairment. This includes hitting, pushing, restraining, and inappropriate use of medication.

Neglect — failure to provide necessary food, shelter, clothing, medical care, or supervision. This can be by a caregiver, family member, or the older adult themselves (self-neglect).

Financial exploitation — illegal or improper use of an at-risk adult's funds, property, or assets. This includes unauthorized withdrawals, forged signatures, coerced changes to wills or deeds, and scams.

Sexual abuse — any non-consensual sexual contact.

Harmful acts — acts by a person who has a relationship with the at-risk adult that are not abuse, caretaker neglect, or exploitation but cause harm to the adult's health, safety, or welfare.

How to Report

Call the county Department of Human Services in the county where the at-risk adult lives. Every Colorado county has an APS intake line. For Denver County, call 720-944-3666. For statewide guidance, use the Colorado Department of Human Services county directory to find the correct APS intake number; 1-844-CO-4-KIDS is the child-abuse hotline, not the adult APS line.

Mandatory reporters — under C.R.S. § 18-6.5-108, specified persons must report suspected mistreatment of an at-risk elder age 70 or older, or an at-risk adult with intellectual and developmental disabilities, to local law enforcement. Anyone else may report suspected abuse, neglect, exploitation, or self-neglect to county APS.

What to include in the report:

• The at-risk adult's name, age, and location
• The suspected abuser's name and relationship to the victim
• Specific incidents with dates and details
• Any evidence of physical injury, financial loss, or declining condition
• Whether the adult is in immediate danger

What Happens After a Report

APS screens reports and assigns a response timeframe based on reported risk. If accepted:

1. Initial response: Emergency cases receive an initial response no later than 24 hours; other cases follow the county's risk-based response timeframe.
2. Investigation: If accepted, an APS caseworker contacts the at-risk adult, interviews witnesses, and reviews relevant records.
3. Findings: In a traditional response-track investigation, the result may be substantiated, unsubstantiated, or inconclusive; alternative-response cases use a conclusion instead of those findings.
4. Follow-up: A substantiated finding is recorded in the APS system and may lead to protective services, referrals, or other action.

If the investigation reveals criminal conduct, APS coordinates with law enforcement. If the adult needs emergency protection, APS can coordinate with law enforcement and court processes.

The CAPS Check and Guardianship

Here's where APS intersects directly with the legal authority process: every person who applies to become a guardian or conservator in Colorado must undergo a CAPS check — a search of the Colorado Adult Protective Services database for substantiated findings.

CAPS is a search of the Colorado Adult Protective Services database. The proposed guardian submits a CAPS Written Authorization Form to the court clerk, who runs the search against the CDHS database. The current processing fee is approximately $9.

A substantiated CAPS finding doesn't automatically disqualify someone from serving as guardian, but it raises a serious red flag that the judge will scrutinize. The court can request additional information, impose restrictions, or deny the appointment entirely based on CAPS results.

Protecting Your Parent Through Legal Authority

If your parent is vulnerable to exploitation but still has decisional capacity, the strongest protection is a properly executed durable financial power of attorney that names a trusted agent to monitor and manage their finances. Once the POA is in place, the agent can:

• Monitor bank and investment accounts for suspicious activity
• Alert financial institutions to potential exploitation
• Take legal action against exploiters on the parent's behalf

If capacity is already lost and no POA exists, guardianship or conservatorship may be needed for court authority. For medical decisions, the Colorado Proxy Law may allow the medical team to seek a consensus proxy first; if interested persons cannot reach consensus, court guardianship may be needed. The court process includes background checks (CBI, CAPS, and credit) designed to help the court evaluate the proposed fiduciary.

What APS Cannot Do

APS investigates and refers for services, but it does not:

• Remove an at-risk adult from their home against their will (unless a court orders it)
• Grant legal authority over the adult's finances or medical decisions
• Provide ongoing case management or long-term care coordination (that's the CMA's role)
• Prosecute criminal cases (that's district attorney territory)

If your parent needs both protection from abuse and someone with legal authority to act, you'll need the APS system for investigation and the court system for guardianship — two parallel processes that the Colorado Power of Attorney & Guardianship Kit walks you through together.

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