Dublin Launches Elder Fraud Awareness Event and New Public Safety Education Program

Dublin is rolling out two public-safety education programs in a single week — an elder-fraud awareness session on Tuesday and the inaugural class of a new program called Public Safety U on Thursday — in a deliberate shift from reactive policing toward front-end prevention.

The back-to-back launches reflect a city investing in teaching residents how scams target seniors and how Dublin's emergency-response network actually operates when someone calls 911.

The stakes are real: nearly 7,000 Ohio residents age 60 and older reported losses of about $164 million to fraud in 2025, a 72 percent increase from the year before. Ohio ranked among the top 10 states for elder-scam complaints that year, part of a national wave in which more than 200,000 Americans 60 and older filed fraud complaints totaling losses above $7 billion. Investment and crypto-related schemes account for roughly half of Ohio's elder-fraud losses, while reported romance-scam losses among Ohio seniors have risen nearly 50 percent over the past five years.

Guard Your Peace & Pocketbook

The first program, titled Guard Your Peace & Pocketbook: Navigating Scams with Awareness and Support, takes place Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Court Room in the Dublin Justice Center, 6565 Commerce Parkway. Forever Dublin, the city's aging-in-place resource network for residents 55 and older and their caregivers, is presenting the event in partnership with Syntero and the City of Dublin. Syntero is a Dublin-based nonprofit behavioral health provider offering mental health counseling, therapy and substance-use-disorder services for adults, youth and families.

Grace Seipel, Syntero's Older Adult Caregiver Support Specialist, and Detective Andrea Shull, a Certified Fraud Examiner with the Dublin Police Department, will lead the session. The evening will focus on recent scam trends targeting older adults, the emotional toll of fraud, and practical prevention conversations families can have at home.

Public Safety U

Two days later, Public Safety U launches with an Orientation & Public Safety Overview session on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. The free, 10-week program brings together Dublin Police, Washington Township Fire Department and the Northwest Regional Emergency Communications Center — known as NRECC, the primary 911 and public-safety dispatch hub for Dublin, Hilliard, Upper Arlington, Washington Township and Norwich Township — to walk participants through the emergency-response system from the first 911 call through the final response.

Classes run Thursdays from 6 to 9 p.m. through Nov. 5, 2026. Participants must be 18 or older and complete a background check; applications for the inaugural session closed July 1.

Dublin Police Chief Justin Páez has built a community-policing approach around partnership, prevention, education and engagement, and the department describes its mission as protecting life, liberty and property in partnership with the community. Public Safety U joins an existing lineup of community programs that includes self-defense classes, active-threat training for businesses, neighborhood safety presentations, ride-alongs and traffic-safety programs.

Will the programs reach who needs them most?

The practical question is whether either initiative can connect with the residents who stand to benefit most — isolated seniors vulnerable to fraud, or families who have never had reason to engage with emergency responders. The elder-fraud session is designed for residents 55 and older and their caregivers and runs through Forever Dublin's existing aging-in-place network, which provides a built-in pipeline to that audience. Public Safety U, by contrast, requires an application, a background check, and a 10-week Thursday-evening commitment — requirements that may shape who ultimately has access to the emergency-response education the city wants to spread.

The elder-fraud awareness event information is available on the City of Dublin's calendar and on Syntero's community workshops page. Details about Public Safety U and other Dublin Police community programs are at dublinohiousa.gov/dublin-police/community-programs/.