Agencies working together for victims of sexualized violence

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on November 20, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Four agencies working with victims of sexualized violence have created a first-of-it’s-kind in Alberta collaboration.
Lethbridge Police Service Victim/Witness Services, along with YWCA Amethyst Project, the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre and RCMP Rural Corridor Victim Services have reached a Memorandum of Understanding which will help all agencies work together to better serve victims.
“We started it back at the tail end of 2019. We worked through 2020 on nailing this stuff down and we’re able to get it finished up so it’s all in place. This is the first one of its kind in the province so there was a lot of partnerships and working with the Solicitor General and be able to work thorough our agencies to find a way to develop something brand new to be able to use,” said Catherine Pooley, program manager of LPS Victim/Witness Services, on Friday.
“It took a bit of time but I think it was well worth it,” Pooley said.
Pooley hopes the local collaboration will be a template for other Alberta communities.
“We certainly hope so,” she said.
“We’ve put in a lot of work to get it here and we feel it really puts victims first and foremost for all of our agencies. So we’re really hoping other agencies can sort of jump on board and use this as a model to be able to put victims first in their communities, too,” Pooley said.
The effort is focused on helping people who have suffered sexual violence.
“We would be supporting them in a number of different ways and because we recognize the needs of individuals that have survived this, it’s very different based on the individual person. We wanted to make sure we were all kind of working collaboratively and collectively so that their needs are always our sort of North Star as we carry forward,” Pooley said.
The YWCA in the Amethyst Project focuses on a third option which gives people the option to report to police, not report to the police or have all their medical needs taken care of and evidence collected, she said.
“It is a tough decision to make as to how people want to proceed once they have been victimized this way and we recognize as their needs change, our response needs to change.
“So the ‘Y’ focuses on one option, Chinook – that’s their real specialty being able to help work people through this situation –  and from our side in the VSU and LPS and with the RCMP, we have the connection then to the police to help them through the justice process,” Pooley added.
Pooley said there is a stigma with reporting violence “but I do think that it’s more than that; it’s how we respond is so individual. How we’ve experienced something changes how we respond to it and I don’t think it’s our place as service providers to tell someone how they will respond to it.
“It’s our job to listen and support them while they tell us. And we then meet their needs,” said Pooley.
According to Kristine Cassie of the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre, four agencies in the city “were asked actually to look at how we work together because we all take on, or do, different things when it comes to victims of sexualized violence.
“It’s a great way for us to actually look at how we are honouring the rights of victims when they’re going through police and court support work,” said Cassie.

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