Nouvelles initiatives

The Ontario Woman Abuse Screening Project is a collaboration of more than fifty agencies working with women with lived experience of woman abuse, sexual assault, abuse-related trauma, addiction and/or mental health issues to ensure that abused women can access mental health and addiction services that are woman abuse/sexual assault/trauma-informed. Currently seven regions across Ontario are working to facilitate this cross-sectoral collaboration, develop ways of screening for woman abuse/sexual assault/ trauma, and to have their local experts develop and facilitate cross training. Service providers in the mental health and addiction sectors are offered training by local experts to provide woman abuse-informed/ sexual assault-informed/ trauma-informed services. In the woman abuse/sexual assault sector, service providers are offered cross training to provide mental health-informed and addiction-informed services. By making ‘every door the right door’, regardless of the first door or sector women access, abused women who might otherwise not access sexual assault, woman abuse or mental health/addiction supports will be identified and referred to appropriate services. Providing woman abuse-informed, sexual assault-informed and trauma-informed services will bring about better outcomes for abused women with mental health and/or addiction issues.

Participants include the mental health, addiction, woman abuse, sexual assault, child protection and allied sectors, as well as, women with lived experience. This collaborative work was initiated in the London-Middlesex region where screening and training was implemented in 2002/3, and our work resulted in transformative systemic changes and supported the development of some innovative coordinated and integrated services for abused women with mental health and/or addiction issues. During the last year, Thunder Bay, Northwestern Ontario and Hamilton have joined the previously involved regions, Chatham-Kent, Grey-Bruce, Sudbury-Manitoulin and London-Middlesex, which are currently participating and which have implemented screening and abuse/trauma-informed services or are in the process of developing their regional trainings and screening tools/processes. Several new regions are being invited to participate and to set up their own steering committees, which will guide the collaboration in their regions. If you would like to learn more, see our new website www.womanabusescreening.ca.
(Disponible en anglais seulement)

LEAF Launches a New Website to Monitor Equality Rights
www.equalityrightscentral.com

September 29, 2010, Toronto - September 29, 2010 at noon (EST) is the public launch date of the Equality Rights Central ("ERC") website, the first-of-its-kind online resource in Canada, to monitor developments in equality law.

The ERC is sponsored by LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, building on LEAF's 25 years of expertise in advancing equality rights law and policy in Canada. "It has been very exciting to see this project come together, and this is just the beginning, as equality rights advocates use it and contribute to it," says the project's coordinator, LEAF Staff Lawyer, Tamar Witelson.

The ERC will monitor all equality, human rights and discrimination issues, primarily in lower courts and tribunals. It will feature recently launched cases, equality-related news and analysis, legislative reform with an equality impact, and a nationwide events calendar. "Resources like examples of written factums from equality cases have gotten very enthusiastic feedback so far," says Witelson.

LEAF Legal Director, Joanna Birenbaum says, "the ERC will help equality advocates to network and share information and resources to develop test cases." "There is already discussion on the site about the meaning of consent in sexual assault cases when a person is unconscious; whether the federal government has to make its websites more accessible to people with visual impairments; and the equality implications of challenges to the Criminal Code provisions against polygamy and prostitution-related activity," says Birenbaum.

The ERC idea has been in development for three years, with funding from the law foundations of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick, as well as the LEAF Foundation.

For more information, go online at: www.equalityrightscentral.com

LEAF is a national, non profit organization committed to confront all forms of discrimination through legal action, public education, and law. For more information about LEAF visit www.leaf.ca (Disponible en anglais seulement)

Domestic Violence, Mental Health, and Addictions Curriculum Development project

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce the Domestic Violence, Mental Health, and Addictions Curriculum Development project. This project is funded by the Province of Ontario through the Ontario Women’s Directorate. The principal investigator is Dr. Robin Mason, Research Scientist at Women’s College Research Institute at Women’s College Hospital and the co-principal investigator is Dr. Brenda Toner, Co-Head of Social Equity and Health Research at CAMH and Professor and Head of Women’s Mental Health Program at University of Toronto.

The goal of the project is to draw upon the expertise of those working in the VAW, mental health, and addiction fields to a) identify core competencies for working at the intersection of these three sectors and b) incorporate the competencies into a practical curriculum to ensure abused women receive the best care possible wherever they go for help.

The published literature and the province’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) have noted that domestic violence homicides frequently occur in conjunction with mental health issues and/or substance use. The DVDRC has consistently recommended that frontline service providers develop greater knowledge about the intersection of mental health and substance use issues with domestic violence perpetration and victimization. A key objective of this project is to share information, improve communication and coordination across sectors, and create linkages among those working in VAW, mental health, and addictions. A secondary objective is to involve those who work with abusive men in the developing dialogue. (Disponible en anglais seulement)

Susan O’Rinn, Project Coordinator
Tel: (416) 351-3732, ext. 2704
Email: susan.orinn@wchospital.ca

Check out the new ILID Facebook fan page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=138759822812892#!/pages/In-Love-and-In-Danger/138759822812892?v=wall …and our new blog: http://inloveandindanger.blogspot.com/. Feel free to comment and share with others – we want to get the word out about these new tools. (Disponible en anglais seulement)

Ottawa has a Dress for Success!

We were granted our affiliate status in February of this year. As of June 1, Dress for Success Ottawa National Capital Region is officially incorporated as a not for profit agency. We are therefore one step closer to outfitting marginalized women in the area with the clothing, skills - and the confidence - they need to find work.

How will we do that? Working with local referral agencies, DFS Ottawa will provide women who have landed a job interview with appropriate business attire. And they can also take part in our Professional Women's Group, that will focus on mentoring and career development. We hope to sign a lease agreement for space by the end of June. It is our intention to to outfit our first clients this fall! (Disponible en anglais seulement)

Dress for Success Ottawa National Capital Region
ottawa@dressforsuccess.org
www.dressforsuccess.org/ottawa

The Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre officially launched a sexual assault support line for Carleton students, staff and faculty this morning at 8am.

Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre | 2010

The number is 613-620-1030 and the line is open from 8am to midnight, 7 days a week.

The line offers free, confidential, peer support to all Carleton students, staff, and faculty regardless of gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, age, Mother Tongue or student status. We are NOT affiliated with Carleton University administration in any way. Our work is funded through an anonymous donor.

We are trained support workers who work within an anti-oppressive, feminist, survivor-driven framework. We are here for survivors, first and foremost and our creation of the line is a result of feedback from students over the past 3 years. The Coalition has been very active and very public since the fall of 2007 and in doing so, have been approached by hundreds of students either through our rallies, our Facebook group, our e-mail or through the Task Force on Gender-Based Violence, which was held in November, 2009. Students want access to services that are non-judgmental, non-hierarchical and responsive to the needs of the student body. Survivors want to be heard.

We are continuing to participate in a working group with Equity Services with the goal of a joint recommendation to President Runte by the end of this semester. The hope is that President Runte will consider our recommendations for improved sexual assault services on campus and make an announcement in the fall, bringing concrete changes to Carleton. The Coalition is recommending a student-run, university funded sexual assault centre. (Disponible en anglais seulement)

For more information, please call or e-mail us at coalitionforcarleton@gmail.com

Social Sciences and Humanities Curriculum Review
Feedback Consultation – Fall 2009

OCTEVAW | 2009

In January, 2009 educators and other stakeholders had an opportunity to provide feedback on the proposed draft revisions of a number of courses in the Social Sciences and Humanities Curriculum, Grades 9 to 12. We are now soliciting feedback from educators and stakeholders on three new courses which will be a part of the revised Social Sciences and Humanities Curriculum. http://www.aiep-iaps.org/Members/sites/all/modules/civicrm/bin/civimail.... These courses are:

• Gender Studies (Grade 11 – University/College Preparation)
• World Cultures (Grade 12 – University/College Preparation)
• Human Dynamics (Grade 11 – Workplace Preparation)

The Miss G Project for Equity in Education

Une protection renforcée pour les femmes et les enfants
Le gouvernement McGuinty réforme la justice familiale pour les Ontariens et Ontariennes

par : OCTEVAW | signalé : Le 26 octobre 2009

Les ordonnances de ne pas faire en Ontario ont été renforcées pour améliorer la sécurité de ceux et celles qui souffrent de la violence familiale, la plupart des femmes et des enfants.