Women’s shelters doing more with less

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This article was published 29/10/2017 (2957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Children run up and down the hallways of Nova House as the evening sun begins to set. Many of them are younger than school age — and some seem excited to explore their new, temporary home.

The Selkirk women’s shelter opened a larger building in May and has remained at maximum capacity for much of that time, now housing eight women and six children.

Each person’s journey has been different, but for now, they’re staying here to escape violent households and keep their kids safe.

‘We’ve done fashion shows, we’ve done walks. Just to maintain our programming, we need to raise about $150,000 every year… I’ve even heard from certain ministers, ‘Why can’t you have another bake sale?”– Anna Pazdzierski, executive director, Nova House

For some of them, the difference between life and death can depend on how quickly they find support. With this in mind, a handful of districts in Maryland and New York have started a pilot project to bring help to those in the most dangerous situations.

Anti-violence advocates in Manitoba say a program like this could be of immense value, but there’s no money for it.

The new program is based on a danger assessment originally developed in 1986 by Jacquelyn Campbell, currently the Anna D. Wolf Chair and a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.

It’s essentially a list of 20 questions designed to indicate whether a victim of abuse is at high risk of being killed by their partner. It also asks people to chart previous abuse on a calendar. The idea behind this is victims may be more likely to realize the danger they are in if they can visualize how often the abuse takes place and how severe it is.

“The research showed that in more cases than not, victims of domestic-partner homicide had had contact with law enforcement prior to the homicide,” says Sarita Green, associate director of New York-based Safe Homes of Orange County, where the newest pilot program began six months ago.

“Police are required by law to inform the victim about the domestic-violence program in their community, but we know many people who are handed those papers won’t call the hotline,” Green says.

The lethality assessment was shortened from 20 questions to 11 for police, with the goal of bringing those most at risk in touch with support they might not have known about.

In practice, police officers who respond to a report of domestic violence will go through the danger assessment with the victim. If the victim scores high enough, or if the officer deems them to be at risk, attending police will call Safe Homes and turn the phone over to the woman at the scene.

A crisis hotline operator then explains that based on the test, they believe the person could become a homicide victim.

“(The representative) will do some safety planning and inform them about the services we offer,” Green says. “A co-ordinator for the project then follows up every call to give them the full 20-question assessment.”

Proponents of this system believe the extra support offered on scene can make all the difference in preventing intimate-partner homicides. But in addition to that initial contact, a project co-ordinator will also do a ride-along home visit with off-duty police officers at a later date to check on the victim’s well-being.

“As part of the grant funding, we were able to work into the contract an opportunity to pay officers overtime to conduct the ride-along visits,” Green says.

Although self-reported cases of domestic abuse have declined slightly in the past 10 years, the numbers are still staggering.

According to Statistics Canada, a woman is killed every six days in Canada by an intimate partner, with Indigenous women being six times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be killed.

Additionally, some estimates say that as much as 70 per cent of spousal abuse goes unreported.

Despite this, executive directors of some Manitoba women’s shelters say they haven’t seen an increase in provincial funding since the early 1990s.

“The work has changed, funding has not,” says Lesley Lindberg, executive director of Willow Place and chairwoman of the Manitoba Association Of Women’s Shelters (MAWS), which held its annual meeting Sept. 20.

“We’re at a point now where, without investment in our work, we’re losing ground.”

Lindberg and other executive directors agree the rise of technology in enabling abuse — such as controlling text messages — and intergenerational trauma has meant the needs of abused women and children have only grown more complex.

Under the original agreement between the province and MAWS, each shelter would be responsible for 15 per cent of its own funding. However, Lindberg notes the dollar amount coming from the government hasn’t increased since that time, and shelters now require much more to stay open.

“We’ve done fashion shows, we’ve done walks,” says Anna Pazdzierski, executive director of Nova House. “Just to maintain our programming, we need to raise about $150,000 every year.”

Without money, a shelter’s first option is to start laying off staff. But Nova House’s shortage of funds isn’t for lack of trying to get it. Lindberg and Pazdzierski have both been petitioning the government for extra funds for years, and have been met with a flat response.

“I’ve even heard from certain ministers, ‘Why can’t you have another bake sale?’” Pazdzierski says.

In fact, Nova House did, at the end of September. Workers and volunteers like Pazdzierski were up late into the evenings baking.

Without year-round efforts like this, the support systems for women escaping domestic violence would crumble.

“This is one of the most significant social issues right now, because it puts the very fabric of society at risk,” Lindberg says.

Will Reimer is a senior journalism student in the creative communications program at Red River College in Winnipeg. This article was a product of a feature writing assignment.

wreimer53@academic.rrc.ca