Demand for family violence counselling increases

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This article was published 07/12/2021 (1752 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Facing increases in the demands placed on its services since the pandemic started, representatives from the Women’s Resource Centre appeared before Brandon City Council on Monday to ask for assistance.

According to Cara McCaskill and Mia Bastien from the centre, there is currently a gap in child and youth as well as family violence counselling in the city, and the needs for their services have skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

The women asked councillors to provide funding so the centre can hire a new full-time counsellor.

The request was timely because yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. As well, Nov. 25 marked the first day of the United Nations’ annual 16 Days of Activism campaign to promote the end of violence against women, and Friday is Human Rights Day.

The Women’s Resource Centre has been working with self-identifying women and their children in Brandon for more than 30 years.

McCaskill, the centre’s sexual assault resource co-ordinator, presented statistics and facts that show a need for counselling surrounding gender-based violence: more than one in three women are subjected to physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetimes; there are clear intersections between family violence or intimate partner violence and sexual violence; and during and after disasters like pandemics, women and children are at greater risk of experiencing family and sexual violence.

“Due to the chronic and well-documented underreporting of crimes of domestic and sexual violence, we can deduce that this number is higher than one in three,” she said of the first point.

Relating to the pandemic, she further cited studies that link family and sexual violence during the COVID-19 pandemic to quarantine/isolation orders, financial instability, added stress and adherence to gender roles.

“So much so that this has been referred to as the ‘shadow pandemic’ by experts in the field of sexual and domestic violence,” McCaskill said.

While this has been a problem in Brandon, news reports were cited showing that it is a problem across the country.

Bastien, the centre’s director of operations and development, said there are currently more than 50 women and children on the waiting list for counselling services at the Women’s Resource Centre — a record high in its history. The normal waiting list is between zero and five patients and someone on the list has been waiting for six months.

This problem is exacerbated, she added, by the fact that there are limited options for low- or no-cost counselling in the city.

To take a step in the right direction, the centre asked council to commit to funding a counselling position for a year.

“While gender-based violence is sometimes viewed as a private issue, there is a significant community cost to underfunding counselling programs,” Bastien said. “This is a public health issue, a human rights issue and an economic issue.”

The centre’s revenue usually comes from the provincial and federal governments as well as local fundraising.

Since funding is usually obtained through those higher levels of government, Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Rosser) then asked if they had approached the province for funding before coming to the city.

The centre has received funding to expand sexual assault response services, but Bastien said grants are usually constrained, and there aren’t any options for requesting additional mental health or counselling supports right now.

“That’s frustrating for me to hear because I agree with you; this is a public health issue,” Desjarlais said. “Public health issues should be dealt with by the province, and the fact that you have to come to a council meeting and request funding for something that should be provided by the province immediately is a little upsetting. I’m curious to know what amount of funding you’re requesting.”

The centre is requesting $45,000. Bastien said that amount would ideally allow the centre to hire someone with backgrounds in both women and children’s counselling and would already be educated in trauma-informed counselling.

Coun. Shaun Cameron (University) asked the presenters if the centre could hire someone from within the community so there isn’t a multi-month search to find a suitable candidate, and they expressed that they didn’t believe there would be an issue.

Mayor Rick Chrest wanted to know why the centre is making this request when it hasn’t submitted any applications to the city under the grants review process for next year’s budget.

“This is an unprecedented increase,” Bastien said. “We saw a spike we were not expecting, hence the lack of an application.”

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