Ending domestic-violence deaths a slow process for committee

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This article was published 15/6/2015 (1667 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A provincial committee tasked to help prevent domestic-violence deaths in Manitoba faces a slow climb toward pinpointing the patterns that contribute to those killings.

Five years after it was established, the Manitoba domestic violence death review committee is halfway through its initial slate of 10 domestic-violence death cases, with four reviews completed and a fifth nearly finished.

From those reviews have come 11 recommendations for anti-family-violence training programs, public awareness campaigns, improved communication between justice officials, law enforcement agencies and medical professionals. Only about half the recommendations have been implemented. Among those unfulfilled are suggestions to equip all police officers responding to family violence reports with cameras so they can photograph victims' injuries immediately, for example, and to establish a process by which doctors and nurses can refer abuse victims to support services.

The committee reports to Manitoba Justice and is made up of representatives from several government departments, including victims services, Status of Women and Education, as well as police, the medical examiner's office, probation and prosecution officials and the University of Manitoba's anti-violence Resolve research group. It reviews selected homicide cases the courts have already dealt with, tracing victims and offenders by interviewing relatives and friends, examining their lives as far back as birth to see where they may have fallen through the cracks. Each review takes several months.

"Ultimately, the committee is only as good as its success in implementing these recommendations. So I think that's a very important piece of the puzzle, and we need to be monitoring which recommendations that are made are actually implemented and which are outstanding and why," said committee member Jane Ursel, of Resolve.

There is still work to do, said Janelle Braun, death-review committee chairwoman and acting executive director of Manitoba Justice victims services.

"Because some of these recommendations touch various departments, we want to continue to meet with the advisory committee and talk about how we can all work together to look at implementing the recommendations," she said. Domestic-violence-support training has been delivered to police, medical staff and more than 80 social workers at Health Sciences Centre, Braun said, and new healthy-relationship campaigns aimed at teens have been created. As well, the city's animal services agency now reports instances of animal abuse within a family to victims services, aware that harming animals is often one of the first signs of escalating violence.

But until the committee has reviewed at least 10 cases of Manitobans who have died as a result of domestic violence, it can't start to identify any trends, risk factors or gaps in support services that may have led to the deaths — which is the committee's reason for being. Since the committee started its work, at least 30 Manitobans have died because of domestic violence.

Directly involving social-services agencies — such as shelters and counselling services — in the committee could help with the review process, said Ursel.

Trudy Lavallee, executive director of the Ikwe-Widdjiitiwin crisis shelter in Winnipeg, agrees. "Sadly, when there is a woman identified that has died of domestic violence or been murdered by her partner, we always check our system to see if she had ever been a previous client here," she said.

"We see first-hand the systematic barriers and challenges that women face," she added, noting similar committees in other jurisdictions count shelter representatives among their members.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca