HALIFAX, THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2004

COMMUNITY SERVICES FORUM ON FAMILY VIOLENCE

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Marilyn More

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I want to welcome everyone to the all-day Forum on Family Violence. My name is Marilyn More and I am the MLA for Dartmouth South-Portland Valley, and I also chair the Standing Committee on Community Services. So thank you very much for coming. There will be a number of people coming in and out during the day. This morning we are going to hear a couple of presentations, so I think perhaps we should get underway. There will be other members of our committee joining us when their other commitments allow.

Before we start with introductions, I just want to give you a little bit of background or explanation about the forum. When the Transition House Association met with the Standing Committee on Community Services on February 12^th, the committee members realized there was still very much that they didn't understand about the issue of family violence, and the suggestion was made that we have an all-day forum so that we can raise awareness and understanding, not only amongst ourselves on the committee but, hopefully, among the sector and also in the general public. This is an attempt to do that, so we thank you very much for your participation.

I also want to, at this time, just quickly give thanks to our committee clerk, Mora Stevens, and also to the Executive Director of the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, Pamela Harrison, for all their work in organizing the agenda and activities for today.

We are delighted to have this forum in the Red Chamber, often referred to as the Red Room, and we have made available to you these booklets. They are on the stands there with the agendas in case you want to read a little more about the history of this very important building, Province House. I found it interesting. The author of that publication states that in Canada "more history has been made within these four walls than in all other legislatures combined." So we have a very long history here and I think it is quite significant that we are hosting this forum in the Red Chamber.

1

I also found it interesting - just a little tidbit, I love history - apparently, and I am quoting from the publication that "all the window and door surrounds, chimneypieces and panels above the windows are delicately patterned with" - now listen to this - "sea and plant life, pastoral scenes, and architectural fantasies." So if you find your eyes gazing, just see what you can pick out. I can pick out a few shells myself, but it would be interesting to go around and try to identify all these decorative features. Anyhow, it will certainly add the dignity and significance that this issue deserves to be holding this forum in the Red Chamber, but at the same time I just want to tell you that we are fairly informal, so if you have a question, or you want to interrupt, please don't hesitate.

So I would like to start now with introductions of the members of the Standing Committee on Community Services.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We have two of our presenters joining us here at the table today as well. Irene Smith is going to be speaking first and she is the Executive Director for the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre, and we have Ron Kelly here from the Men's Prevention Program. You can introduce yourselves a little more formally when you start your presentation.

[9:15 a.m.]

Just a reminder that in order to have the sound at a level that is consistent with the quality that our technicians want, we ask everyone to speak fairly closely to the mics. We are going to have some interference, obviously, from street traffic and other things, but we have been asked to speak as closely to the mics as possible. Are there any questions or comments before we start?

No? Okay. Irene, would you like to begin?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank members of the standing committee for inviting the Avalon Centre here today, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you about the work that we do at the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre and the continued challenges that we face in our efforts to maintain essential services for women, their families, and the communities in the Province of Nova Scotia trying to recover from the effects of sexual violence. I provided members of the committee with folders and most of my presentation is contained in those folders in one document or another.

I would like to take the next 10 to 15 minutes to provide you with a brief "herstory" of the Avalon Centre and the work that we do at the centre. In 1980, there were high occurrences of sexual assaults in the South End of Halifax and students from the community psychology course recognized that there were no supports in place for victims of rape. They turned to a professor, Dr. Ed Renner, and with his assistance applied for federal funding to establish the first sexual assault centre in the Province of Nova Scotia; that was in 1983. In 1984, the centre received funding from the Department of Community Services and in May was incorporated under the name of the Service for Sexual Assault Victims. In 1995, the name of the centre was changed to the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre to reflect the true nature of the work that we do. Today, there are only two sexual assault centres in the Province of Nova Scotia. One is, of course, the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre, and the other is the Colchester Sexual Assault Centre which has one employee - one employee only.

The Avalon Centre provides services for women dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence, which can be during adulthood or as a result of a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. We also work with non-offending parents whose children have been sexually abused, as well as partners of survivors of sexual violence.

The programs and services at the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre include individual for women 16 years of age and over who are struggling with the effects of sexual violence, whether it is an immediate sexual assault or past sexual assault as a child. We also provide support and therapy groups for survivors, and this is really a stepping stone model of trying to work with women in their various stages of healing from the effects of sexual violence. I should note that Avalon Sexual Assault Centre is the only agency that provides these specific kinds of services that are directed toward survivors of child sexual abuse and individuals who are dealing with immediate sexual violence. Certainly no one is doing support and therapy groups for these women.

We also do information sessions. Those information sessions include information sessions for partners of survivors, as well as non-offending parents, and we partner with the IWK in providing information sessions for non-offending parents who are trying to navigate particularly the legal system when it comes to trying to cope with the effects of sexual violence of their child, as well as their own emotional difficulties that they might be experiencing.

We also provide court support for women 16 years of age and over who are going through the legal system, so that can include providing information about the legal process itself as well as providing emotional support for the trauma that it frequently causes when going through the criminal justice system, and many, many women report that they feel re-victimized and traumatized by that experience.

Advocacy is another area that we work in, and the advocacy work that we do involves both individual advocacy as well as advocating for public policy reform, legislation reform, and other kinds of activities that can often have an impact on women who are directly affected by public policy and legislation that affect them. One particular piece of advocacy work that we have done was with an individual woman who had been sexually assaulted by a minister, a church minister, who was also providing counselling for her and that case ended up, the initial charge was a charge whereby he could have spent, indeed, 10 years in prison. It was reduced to a summary conviction and it ended up in adult diversion, whereby he ended up doing an 18-page report on professional misconduct. The Avalon Centre was very active in lobbying the Department of Justice around the idea that any crime of sexual violence should be sent to adult diversion and were successful in having their policy changed so that, currently, no sexual assaults are referred to adult diversion.

We also do information referral. We receive anywhere from 500 to 600 calls a year from individuals who are looking for various kinds of services. That can include male survivors of child sexual abuse, looking for counselling services of which, I am sad to say, is very limited in this province. There are private practitioners who do this kind of work, but if you don't have health care coverage, unfortunately, there is really no place to turn, for male survivors.

We also do a great deal of education in the community. This includes both community education, as well as professional development for a wide range of service providers in the province. Indeed, the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre is called upon on a regular basis to provide training for a wide range of service providers, and through the funding from the Nova Scotia Law Foundation, we have received funding for four consecutive years and we've been able to provide training in every region of the province, for service providers.

Another very essential service that the centre provides is the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, referred to as SANE. The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program provides on-call nurses 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and responds to immediate sexual assaults. Now, basically this service is a partnership with the three health care facilities, the IWK, the Dartmouth General and the QE II. Basically, those are the three facilities that we respond to, however, we have actually had cases that have come from the Northwest Territories to Halifax to receive this service because they're aware of it.

It's interesting to note, as well, that the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program is in all provinces in Canada, however, the program here in the Halifax Regional Municipality is very unique. It's the only one in Canada that is based within a sexual assault centre and is community based. So we can take some pride in realizing that we really are showing some leadership in this country, in how to provide services for women who've been affected by sexual violence.

In addition to the core services that we provide, we also do a great deal of work with a number of other women's organizations in the province and frequently take a leadership role in addressing public policy that can affect women. In particular, the Restorative Justice Program that the Nova Scotia Government introduced, I think it was in 1999 or 2000, had suggested in their public policy that sexual assaults and domestic violence cases would be eligible to be dealt with in a restorative justice forum.

We had some significant concerns about that particular policy and, as a result, other women's organizations in the province, came together, reviewed the document and determined that there was a need to do a great deal more research before introducing such a policy in Nova Scotia. We were successful - and when I say we, I mean a coalition of women's organizations in the province were successful - in receiving funding from Status of Women Canada to conduct some participatory research in the Province of Nova Scotia. That report, with its recommendations, was released in March 2003. Currently, we are working with a joint committee from the Department of Justice, reviewing the recommendations of that report. As a result of that report and the work of women's organizations in this province, the Department of Justice has agreed to put a moratorium on any cases of domestic or sexual assault cases before a restorative justice forum.

In addition to that, the Avalon Centre has participated in a number of other activities that have influenced public policy. In particular, the Avalon Centre conducted a research project on how police and prosecution services respond to investigate and prosecute cases of sexual violence. I don't think it will come to any surprise of anybody around this table or in this room that cases of sexual violence, with respect to charges and prosecution, have been not particularly successful. I think there's a need for us to really review how we are dealing with sexual violence in this province.

As a result of that particular research, there were a number of recommendations that were put forward, including the establishment of a sexual assault squad. I'm pleased to say that very recently, within the last year, Chief Frank Beazley has indeed established such a squad. It's important to note that because of that and the work with the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, we have really developed a far more coordinated response to sexual violence in this province and particularly in the municipality, because actually the sexual assault work that's being done has really been more focused in the Halifax region. The rural communities are in desperate need of a similar kind of model to work in this province.

The other thing that's occurred as a result of that particular research is that the Halifax Regional Police and most recently the RCMP have developed sexual assault policies that provide some governance as to how their officers investigate sexual assault cases. The province has established best practices of how to prosecute sexual assault cases.

I probably could go on and on about other kinds of activities that the centre has been involved with that have positively impacted the Province of Nova Scotia with respect to public policy and law reform, but I won't because I realize I only have 10 minutes. I'm sure that the committee has a lot of questions that they would probably like to ask. But I would like to focus just a little bit on some of the challenges that the centre is involved with on a regular basis.

I guess the one service, before I leave that, is that I did want to talk about our after-hours response line that is available to immediate sexual assaults. We have trained volunteers who respond to immediate sexual assaults and will accompany women to the hospital or to the police station. Another important piece of information that I left out, around the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program is that that service is available to individuals 13 years of age and over, and that's both men and women. I know I'm running out of time.

Some of the challenges that we experience in our day-to-day work, I think, first and foremost is the fact that we have not received an increase in core funding in 11 years, other than $2,390. In 11 years, we have not received an increase in core funding from Community Services, and yet we continue to provide the range of services that I've just outlined for you. Let me tell you, that's done with six full-time staff and three part-time staff. So the $239,000 that Community Services provides to us is absolutely getting its money's worth from the centre. That's one of the challenges that we experience.

In addition to that, our demand for individual counselling continues to increase. We, on a regular basis, have four- to five-month waiting lists for women looking to come in and do counselling. We also have women who are wanting to do more long-term counselling, but we don't have the resources to be able to provide that to all of the women who require it and need it. As a result, when we do do that, then our wait list grows. So our staff are under a great deal of stress, trying to cope with the demand that is coming forward from the community.

It's important to note, as well, that the staff at the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre are paid $1,300 less than their counterparts within the province. So, we are not only coping with staff who are stressed by the demand of their work and the vicarious trauma that often results because of the kinds of work that we do, but we also have staff who are significantly underpaid. Our staff are all individuals who have similar credentials to those within the government sector.

We've experienced, most recently, a significant increase in referrals from guidance counsellors within the school system. I can tell you of a story where a guidance counsellor called our organization, saying that he had a young woman who was 17 years old, who had recently disclosed that she had been sexually assaulted by a relative in the family and who needed to talk to somebody right away, needed to see a counsellor right away. Well, we don't have that luxury of being able to say yes, bring her in. These guidance counsellors often feel frustrated with the fact that they have young women sitting there and they don't know what to do with them and there's no place to send them, because our counsellors are doing counselling with women and we don't have the luxury of saying yes, bring her in and we'll see her right away.

[9:30 a.m.]

We've had a guidance counsellor call us and say that he had an exchange student in his office who had been sexually assaulted by four men in her country of origin before coming to Canada and had just disclosed and needed services. She didn't speak the language and needed to see somebody right away. We couldn't do that because we don't have the resources to respond that readily.

We've received an increased demand from schools wanting Avalon staff to come in and talk to classes about dating violence and violence against women because they've recognized that this is a significant issue. We've had issues around date rape drugs and wanting us to come in and address that issue. We simply don't have the resources to respond to the increasing demand from our communities that want to deal with the issue of sexual violence.

It's a societal issue and because of the increased, I think, media awareness, more and more people are coming forward disclosing the sexual violence and the need for counselling services and the need for supports. This province is, quite frankly, very inadequate in dealing with those demands. How's my time?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I'm not keeping track. Do you want to take another two or three minutes and then we'll perhaps start with questions?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Certainly. I guess I'm going to focus on the lack of resources to respond to the demands to provide outreach services to areas outside the Halifax area. The need for diverse groups, including the Black communities, First Nations and immigrant communities that are looking for outreach services that we don't have the resources to respond or resources to maintain such simple things like office equipment. Currently we just relocated and I'm working out of - my filing cabinet is a box because I don't have a filing cabinet to keep my everyday working files in. We have a phone system that is archaic and we don't have the resources to replace it. We have limited or no resources to purchase educational materials that we're frequently called upon to provide for schools, other service providers, and limited or no resources to develop and revise community educational materials.

I think that it's really important to emphasize that the women that I work with in my organization are completely dedicated to working towards ending violence against women. I think that after my presentation, you will have a better understanding of the scope of the work that we do and so, although I'm sitting here today in a forum that's dealing with family violence, I want to stress that family violence is only a portion of the work that we do. Yes, we deal with women survivors of childhood sexual abuse, but we also deal with a great deal of violence against women, sexual violence against women that is not within the family unit.

I want to stress that because I think it's important for this committee to understand that the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre is really not in the same funding envelope as the transition houses, the women's centres and the men's treatment programs. Community Services recognizes that the scope of our work is far beyond the issue of family violence. I'll stop with that and I'm happy to answer questions.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Irene. You've certainly given us lots of scope for questions. I have Jerry and Mark so far. I should also mention that we've been joined by Russell MacKinnon, who's the MLA for Cape Breton West. I do want to acknowledge that Russell actually came up with the original idea of having this forum and I want to say that we're very grateful for that suggestion. Certainly the committee members supported it 100 per cent. Jerry.

MR. JERRY PYE: Thank you, Irene, for making the presentation before this forum. I just got the opportunity now to leaf through the information that you provided to us. One of the brochures is a very important one of about four pages that states the role of the elected officials. I thought that was very important and certainly enlightened us as to what you think our role should be.

One of the most important issues that you touched on and obviously is the crux of how you operate as the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre and the kinds of services that you provide across the country is to ensure that there is adequate funding for programs and for prevention and services for persons dealing with sexual assault. I do know that you have those x number of bullets on Page 2 and it says, "Take Action. By ensuring funding for prevention and services, you can help prevent future violence . . ."

I guess what I'm hearing from you is that you are operating on a shoestring when you talk about financial resources. Without having the financial resources, it prevents you also from having the human resources and the technical resources that follow. The question is, you said there's $239,000 that comes for core funding from the Department of Community Services. I don't know what you mean by core funding and if you can explain what you mean by the core dollars. As well, obviously you rent a facility, you lease a facility or you own a facility - are you expected to pay property taxes to the regional municipality or a business occupancy tax or is that amount forgiven through a grant from the municipality? You can just mark these down.

Also, Page 3 indicates the statistical information, some of which I find extremely shocking. You say there are approximately 4,700 sexual assaults, if you base it on the premise that only 6 per cent are reported, that go unreported in HRM alone. You don't say what that is for the Province of Nova Scotia and that's probably because you lack the facilities in order to get the data. I guess my question is, if that number is significantly high - and thanks to the Halifax police service for bringing in the sexual assault squad - do they in turn provide you with information and how closely do you work with them to reduce those numbers of unreported sexual assaults? I guess, Madam Chairman, I should stop there and give you a chance to respond to those. I'm sure that at the discussion this afternoon, the round table discussion, a lot more will come up.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Okay, I think the first question was around core funding. The core funding that we receive from Community Services really is focused on the individual counselling, support and therapy groups, court support, advocacy support and referral, the after-hours response line, community education and the activities that we do with regard to - we sit on a lot of government committees. We're often asked to sit on - for example, we were on the Family Violence Prevention Initiative before that program was cut. So we do sit on a lot of different committees. That's the core funding.

The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program is funded 100 per cent by the Department of Health.

Does that answer your question around the core funding?

MR. PYE: Yes, you said that the core funding was totally funded by Community Services of $239,000. We didn't say that there were additional monies.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Okay. We do fundraising and when we do special projects, we frequently charge an administrative fee to that particular project. We did receive $5,000 from the municipality that did support the after-hours response line, it supported part of that activity. I think the cost to operate the after-hours response line is around $20,000 and we get about $5,000 of that from the municipality. It's important to note as well that with the amalgamation of the Halifax Regional Municipality, Avalon Centre actually received a significant decrease in funding from the municipalities because when there was Bedford, the county, Dartmouth and Halifax, we received considerably more resources. Of course, as you all know, with the amalgamation, the issue of community service kinds of programs were the responsibility of the province, so the municipality doesn't see it as their mandate to provide that. With respect to the 4,700 unreported sexual assaults in our work with the Halifax Regional Police, Avalon Centre as a result of some of our collaborations with the Halifax Regional Police, has been able to conduct for the first time ever 40-hour training, for the Halifax Regional Police, on sexual assault investigation. So we have worked with the police and they have been working with us in trying to provide a more coordinated response, as well as with the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program.

Yes, you're right, we don't have the ability or the resources to report on a provincial level what the statistics might be. The RCMP, I think, has only more recently come on-board in working with the centre with the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, and we're working with the Public Prosecution Service as well as Halifax Regional Police, as well as the RCMP, to try to do a better job in data collection and to try to be more coordinated with our data collection. I have frequently asked the Department of Justice, over the years, to provide information with respect to the number of sexual assault charges, the disposition of those cases, and they've been unable to provide them for me - which is also a very sad statement.

MR. PYE: Just one comment. You did say the Halifax Regional Municipality provided you with an additional $5,000 to carry on with the after-hours help line service. Again, I asked you earlier, do you receive or have you made application to the Halifax Regional Municipality Grants Committee for property tax exemption or business occupancy exemption?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Sorry, yes you did ask that question. Basically, we rent from a commercial real estate group and there is business occupancy which would be included in that. I have had discussions with Halifax Regional Municipality around that issue and basically that $5,000 grant is all they've been able to offer. Most recently, I have gone to the municipality and met the mayor to discuss the real possibility of having to reduce or eliminate our after-hours response line because we simply don't have the resources to continue it without additional funding.

I have been talking with the Province of Nova Scotia Department of Community Services for seven years, telling them that we needed additional resources, and if I haven't mentioned already, and I know I have, it has been 11 years since we've received any increase in funding and yet the demand for service continues to escalate.

MR. PYE: I'm sure that will carry further discussion this afternoon. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Mark Parent.

MR. MARK PARENT: Thank you very much for your presentation. One question for further information and then too, I assume, Madam Chairman, we're a little freer to ask larger questions, more philosophical ones at an all-day forum, rather than just specific ones? Or is that for this afternoon?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Well, it's certainly up to you. We want to make sure we understand the particular perspective of this agency this morning, but if you want to talk about something broader, you'll have an opportunity this afternoon in the round table.

MR. PARENT: A more specific one then. We have a wonderful transition home in my constituency in the riding of Kentville, Chrysalis House.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, I'm familiar with their work.

MR. PARENT: I assume you are. I'm still not, in my mind - you claim that you have a wider mandate than the transition homes, and listening to Rhonda Fraser, the new director there, and others at Chrysalis House, their mandate seems to be almost impossibly wide as it is, so can you sketch that out for me a little more? I'm still not clear of the difference between the Avalon Centre and the transition homes such as Chrysalis.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well obviously the transition house provides shelter; we don't provide shelters.

MR. PARENT: Yes, I realize that, that difference, but in terms of counselling, reaching out to the families?

[9:45 a.m.]

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well, again, we don't deal with domestic violence. Our service is very specifically focused to individuals who've been affected by sexual violence, whether it's through family or whether it's through dating relationships. So there's a clear distinction there. If a woman who has experienced domestic violence contacts our organization, we would refer them to the appropriate place . . .

MR. PARENT: You'd refer them then to the transition home.

MS. IRENE SMITH: . . . and we frequently do that. One of the things that we have noticed in recent years is that there's an increased demand for services for women, including transition houses and women's centres to respond to issues that are outside of our mandate because of the reduced amount of resources that are happening in the community. We try very hard to focus on what it is that we're mandated to do and make referrals to other appropriate organizations for areas that are outside of our mandated area. Does that help you, or do you need some further clarification?

MR. PARENT: Yes, that helps to sketch it out - so that's why you claim the uniqueness of the Avalon Centre in the work that you do in the province, right?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, as I say, certainly, our goal, like all equality-seeking women's organizations is the elimination of violence, period, against women, and I know we're talking about family violence but I need to make sure that the committee understands that this is not simply family violence, this is violence against women - and if you look at the national statistics and the local statistics, it's clear that this is violence against women.

MR. PARENT: Then how do you relate with the Women's Centres CONNECT! because we had a presentation from them and they told us that a lot of their work is in the same area.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Absolutely, because in the rural communities there is no one who is dealing with sexual violence, we are the only show in town.

MR. PARENT: You're the resource for them . . .

MS. IRENE SMITH: Exactly, and we do refer back and forth, so certainly when a woman comes to me, or comes to our organization who's dealing with issues of poverty or employment, all of the important things that the women's centres do, then we would refer them to those appropriate centres. Regrettably, in Halifax, there isn't a women's centre. That's what I'm talking about, frequently we're called upon to deal with issues that are outside our mandated area. I can't refer them to a women's centre here in Halifax because there isn't one. So when we have women calling, dealing with homelessness or dealing with the issue of poverty or dealing with childcare, all of those things that the women's centres deal with, there is no specific place to refer them. That's an example of our agency being asked to do things outside of our mandate.

As you can appreciate, when you have a woman on the phone who is in crises, and who is looking for childcare, is living in poverty, and they've called us because there's no place else to call, it's very difficult to say sorry, that's outside of our mandate. So frequently we're asked to deal with issues that are beyond and that causes an incredible amount of stress and trauma for the staff we work with - to say no is difficult.

MR. PARENT: That helps. I'm just trying to delineate the various responsibilities. In terms of restorative justice, I'll throw my bias on the table here . . .

MS. IRENE SMITH: Your what?

MR. PARENT: My bias, because I've been for years and years very, very active in this issue, particularly as the leadership that the Mennonite community showed in restorative justice, and I guess frankly I find the stance of the national Conservative Party somewhat unsettling in that it seems to be this sort of "just lock them up and forget about them position." I hear in some ways a similar sort of statement from you and from other people in regard to restorative justice shouldn't fit here, and I guess I'd like you to tease it out a bit more because I'm a big fan of restorative justice.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Okay. First of all, I want to state clearly that I am not advocating for a law-and-order kind of agenda. That is not what I'm saying. When I look at the program in Nova Scotia, what I am saying is that in order to implement a Restorative Justice Program in Nova Scotia, you have not taken a careful look at the safety of women or what is going to restore justice to women. I'm not against restorative justice. My agency isn't advocating no restorative justice, what I am saying is that the current program is simply not going to work. We have done research and have talked to women in this province, we have looked at other jurisdictions to see what the success is and what is it that they're advocating that it's going to be - they have not done the research to support what they're suggesting and furthermore, the research that we've done here in Halifax is the only research of its kind that has been done in the country.

MR. PARENT: Have then the justice systems, both provincially and federally, invited you in to help them make this system work better or no?

MS. IRENE SMITH: I would say inviting would be a bit of a stretch. I would say that they have allowed us in as a result of the research that we have conducted. How we found out about the Restorative Justice Program was that we were asked to come to a meeting to talk about doing training for volunteers who were going to be responsible for facilitating restorative justice forums. That was the first I heard about restorative justice and when I looked at the program, I became gravely concerned on a number of different areas, including the fact that this public policy was going to significantly download to the community because what it meant is who's going to prepare these women to engage in restorative justice with a perpetrator who has sexually assaulted them.

We know that there are significant issues around power and balances there and who would be called upon to prepare them for and then deal with the aftermath of going through that process? It would be Avalon Sexual Assault Centre because we are the only people who are doing that kind of work. So there are a number of issues around resourcing with respect to restorative justice and, again, I am not saying that restorative justice is not something that can be very useful in different kinds of crimes. I am saying when it comes to issues of sexual violence and domestic violence, we need to be very careful and we need to ensure that the program is properly resourced and currently it is not.

MR. PARENT: I appreciate that and thank you for that clarification and the final question is probably more for this afternoon, but I'll just throw it on the table because when one looks at the larger society, you talked about in some of your pamphlets sexual innuendoes, jokes, pornography, all that sort of thing is not to be tolerated and I appreciate that, but I guess there's this sort of frustration that you're trying so hard and yet in the larger society, violence is condoned in movies and games, the exploitation of women through pornography. Beyond that there's sort of this, you know, frustrating, trying to change these attitudes at the micro level and yet the larger society as a whole seems to mitigate against it.

I remember thinking, for example, and in no way am I condoning, but what happened in the prisons in Iraq, but I mean you could go into your local video store and you can get degrading, exploitive, violent images that really have kept pushing the envelope all the time and so I appreciate what you're doing. I just wonder whether the larger society is, whether saying one thing on one hand, yes, you know, this is a good program and then on the other saying something different, but that's probably a discussion for later in the panel, but it must be frustrating at times for you people and kudos to the Legislature here and to, was it, Joan, for putting forward her bill on the video games because I really do worry - what is that doing to our youth? What message is that giving and then how can we condone that sort of thing because I'm sure there's a linkage.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, you're right, it is very frustrating and I think, you know, it is important to recognize that sexual violence and violence against women in general is the responsibility of our society to stop perpetuating the myths and stereotypes that are associated with women and, you're absolutely right, it's very difficult to try to penetrate people's mindsets and to do that with the kinds of resources that we have. There's no doubt in my mind that what we need to be doing is dealing with kids at a younger and younger age and we constantly talk about what women should do to prevent sexual violence. What we really need to be doing is talking to men because 98 per cent of sexual violence that occurs is perpetrated by men and what we really need to do is we need to be talking to our sons about this and trying to start at a younger age. You know I really think elementary school is where we need to start about educating around the importance of respectful relationships.

MR. PARENT: I would say even younger. My wife worked for years in the equivalent of a Head Start Program in the South Mountain . . .

MS. IRENE SMITH: Oh, yes, yes, I've very familiar with that.

MR. PARENT: And it was incredible. I mean there was one case and then I'll leave it at this, I now have gone over my time, but one case where this father would beat his son with a belt buckle every Friday, drawing blood, or enough to draw blood, and when they finally got to the root of it, his father did that to him and he in some sort of twisted way thought this was the way you raised a son properly. When they finally said, well, did you like your father? No, I hated his guts, you know. Well, what are you doing to your son? And that was far before elementary school. So I agree with you, but I would say we need to push it even further.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, you know, and I'll just make this one comment. I, too, worked for the Head Start Program, I think I was probably 17, my first Head Start Program, that I think was in Whitney Pier in Sydney. I also worked in Beechville and I also worked in North Preston and, you're right, it is at that age that you need to start discussing with kids what is acceptable and what is a reasonable relationship and what a healthy relationship is all about.

MR. PARENT: Thank you very much. Sorry to take too long.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Next, Russell MacKinnon.

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, my first question is, is there anyone from the Department of Justice present here today?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Not that we're aware of.

MR. MACKINNON: Is there anybody from the Department of Community Services here today?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. MACKINNON: There is?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Judy Jackson is here.

MR. MACKINNON: You indicated that you have a clientele of approximately 700 a year, is that correct?

MS. IRENE SMITH: No.

MR. MACKINNON: I hate to use the word clientele.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, well, I'm not sure.

MR. MACKINNON: Approximately.

MS. IRENE SMITH: It's difficult to kind of say clientele, but with respect to women who receive individual counselling, clearly that varies, but in the fiscal year 2002-03 there were 1,419 counselling sessions delivered to 244 women. In addition to that, there were almost 600 hours of service that were provided to another 52 women who went through different therapy support groups. I want you to keep in mind that we have two full-time counsellors and one part-time counsellor and keep in mind that we frequently have a waiting list of another four or five months for women to come in to see. So that's just the counselling program.

Then the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, I think, responded to 147 sexual, that would be immediate sexual assault cases. Not all of those would have been reported to the police. In addition to that, we usually have another 500 to 600 calls that come in from individuals who are looking for either service or information referral that we might refer on to another organization or we might provide information to. That doesn't include calls that we received from service providers who are looking for information, resource and professional development.

MR. MACKINNON: Of the total number that come to your service a year, how many would you estimate to be family-related sexual assaults?

MS. IRENE SMITH: I can say, I'm thinking around 64 per cent of the women, around 64 per cent and I would have to clarify that, I'm sure it's in the annual report somewhere, but I'm thinking around 64 per cent of the women who receive individual counselling are survivors of child sexual abuse. What we have seen an increase in is the number of women who are turning to our service for counselling around the area of immediate sexual violence and that would be as a result of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program which is really only into its fourth year. It was a pilot project that started off, it was a three-year pilot project, and we have just entered in April the fourth year of that project. So we are seeing an increase.

Now, that's individual counselling. When we were talking about individuals calling our office looking for various kinds of service, I don't have the breakdown in front of me, so, I'm sorry, I can't give you that information. I can probably provide that at a later date by looking through some of our previous resources.

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. MACKINNON: Of the total number of women who visit your centre for assistance, how many would you estimate have children that they indicate or you have some guesstimate who have been sexually assaulted as well?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Again, it's unfortunate, we don't have a database that's capturing some of the demographics in that respect. Certainly, I would say that a significant percentage of the women who come to our centre, are single moms.

MR. MACKINNON: And the 60 per cent you referred to are ones you feel have indicated they have been sexually abused as children?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Are survivors of child sexual abuse, yes.

MR. MACKINNON: You haven't been able to - I just want to be clear on this - determine if their children have been sexually abused?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well . . .

MR. MACKINNON: I know it's complicated.

MS. IRENE SMITH: It's a complicated question and, again, I think I need to stress that, the nature of our work, we don't, sometimes, maintain the kinds of statistics that you're looking for. Certainly, if you look at research that's been done, it's not uncommon for sexual abuse to happen within families, to continue to happen within families. I have one situation whereby a woman was coming to our centre, receiving counselling for child sexual abuse, and her partner of, I think it was, 17 years was supporting her through her counselling. Her daughter, her eight-year-old daughter, disclosed to her that her father had been sexually abusing her since the age of five. It's certainly very much, sadly, alive and well.

MR. MACKINNON: Does the Department of Justice or the Department of . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Could I just suggest, make sure the mic is fairly close when you're speaking.

MR. MACKINNON: I know I am soft-toned. Thank you, Madam Chairman. (Interruptions) Some coaching from my colleague to the right. Does the Department of Justice or the Department of Community Services, to your knowledge, keep statistics or any data with relation to this particular matter?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Not to my knowledge, no.

MR. MACKINNON: You indicated approximately 1,400-plus individuals receive your service a year. One of the biggest weaknesses of government is that they are always trying to quantify things on a dollar basis. If they can't quantify, particularly when they're in their little pigeon holes, they just kind of shut it out of their minds and move on to the next target. Have you been able to ascertain, from a dollar value, the cost to society on a client-by-client basis or collectively, what the cost to society has been with regard to your 1,400-plus clientele?

MS. IRENE SMITH: No, I have not.

MR. MACKINNON: I know that's a loaded question, but you can see where I'm going with this, particularly if you're dealing with the issue of funding. You've been restricted for the last 10 or 11 years.

MS. IRENE SMITH: No, I haven't sat down to try to do those kinds of equations. It is difficult to look at the cost to society, but I think we need to be mindful of the fact that if women are not receiving the support and counselling that they need to heal from the effects of sexual violence, it is certainly going to impact on their day-to-day activities, including family responsibilities, work and relationships outside of the home.

MR. MACKINNON: One final question, Madam Chairman. Perhaps on that, if you could take that on notice, sometime, for future deliberations, you could reflect on that particular aspect of it. The other issue that I find extremely compelling is the issue of reporting to the appropriate authorities. You have 1,400-plus client individuals, women coming for your service. I'm sure there are cases that you feel should be reported to the Department of Justice or whatever authority to have action taken. I would tend to think that there are cases where women would come in and say, I don't want this reported.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Absolutely.

MR. MACKINNON: What percentage are you dealing with in that category?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well, I think that in the information I provided you around the statistics, nationally only 6 per cent of sexual assaults are reported to police.

MR. MACKINNON: What about in Nova Scotia?

MS. IRENE SMITH: What I'm saying to you is that it would appear, from the statistics the Halifax Regional Police are keeping in HRM, that that would be around the same, around 6 per cent. It's important to realize that, indeed, we are bound by legislation. If there's any suspicion that there's child sexual abuse happening, we have an obligation to report. We do that or would encourage whomever called, if we have any suspicion that a child might be at risk, then we would make that report. When it comes to adult women deciding not to report to police, I think that if you are reading the media, if you're looking at the media at all, you shouldn't be surprised why people don't want to report crimes of sexual violence. If you look at the woman in Kentville, I believe it was, who was subjected to six hours of cross-examination by the perpetrator, who was eventually convicted of sexual assault, you understand why women do so at a very personal cost to themselves, to go through that process.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Leo Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you, Irene, for a very enlightening presentation. However, I would have to move back to the element which has been very repetitious in terms of presentations to the Standing Committee on Community Services, and that is, of course, the lack of funding. I would just like for you to put it in terms of, if you were to be able to put in place the kind of program that you would like to see here in metro and indeed around the province, what kind of dollar do you think the province would need to be investing? I see you providing a service that requires fundraising, stretching of resources and so forth. If we were to put this into real dollar terms, to deliver the kind of necessary program right now for the province, what kind of ballpark figure?

MS. IRENE SMITH: I believe the last time I met with members from the Department of Community Services, I think the Deputy Minister of Community Services, and Judy Jackson may have been present as well, I'm trying to remember the different people, at that time I think I was asking for about $52,000. Now I need to stress that that is just dealing with metro. That is not a provincial. We were asking for monies to just maintain what we have. We weren't looking at expanding, we were saying give us what we need to just operate the service that we're currently operating within.

I think if it was a provincial thing, I've never dreamt beyond the immediate because I think we would certainly be looking at significantly more dollars. Certainly there are a lot of communities in Nova Scotia that are interested in the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program. Currently I think we get $250,000 from Capital Health to operate that program. So to use that as a blueprint for other communities, we would really have to do, I think, some work with other community groups in the province to find out what kinds of resources they currently have in place and whatnot. But just to maintain the basic core that we have now, $50,000 for Halifax region would do it, which is a pretty small drop in the bucket.

MR. GLAVINE: Is it meetings that you use in order to work on securing the funding? Is there any other means? For example, do you have any correspondence to the department outlining your needs?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, yes.

MR. GLAVINE: You wouldn't mind sharing some of that with the committee here?

MS. IRENE SMITH: I can. I can tell you that when Bill Campbell was the regional director for Community Services - which has got to be in 1998 - I presented to him. The Avalon Sexual Assault Centre has been contacting the Department of Community Services at every level of government, explaining the need for funding.

In 1996, Avalon Centre went through an internal review, looking at how we were spending our money and what was the need of the community. That involved talking to other community service providers as well as doing focus groups with volunteers, staff. It was an independent internal review that was done and the outcome of that review was the reallocation of resources to be able to provide individual counselling and to be able to deal with the demands from the community. At that time we went to the Department of Community Services and said, we have undergone a review, we have reallocated our resources, we've redefined the qualifications needed for staffing to be able to respond to the demand of community and this is what we need.

So, we've been talking to them since 1996 and I certainly do have documentation of letters that we've written, presentations that we've done right back to actually doing a press conference talking about the fact that we're going to have to cut services.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you for that. If you could share with the committee some sampling of that, I think perhaps at a later date, it could be revisited . . .

MS. IRENE SMITH: I'd be happy to do that.

MR. GLAVINE: . . . legislatively and so forth. Just one further question for now. In your opening remarks you were talking about the service and you certainly seemed to indicate that it was pretty well for women.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes.

MR. GLAVINE: And that is the case?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes. Let me clarify that. Certainly the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program responds to any immediate sexual assault - 13 years of age and over - and that includes males. The majority of our cases have been women. We do receive calls from men who are looking for services and we try to provide what information we can and refer them to where we can, but we don't provide individual counselling for males and we don't deal with children.

The IWK has that child protection team that's mandated to deal with child sexual abuse or children who have been sexually assaulted. I must say, they're in need of taking a look at how they're doing that work because we know that children who have been sexually assaulted are not receiving the immediate service that they need.

MR. GLAVINE: That's a pretty frightening comment.

MS. IRENE SMITH: It is a frightening comment.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. GLAVINE: Just to go back for one quick moment here. In terms of adults and in particular here you're saying very little services are available for males. How about the adult male who is going through the many mental health issues as a result of child sexual abuse? What is available in the province? These are people who often are out of the workforce, difficulty coping, the whole gamut and I'm just wondering what is available to them?

MS. IRENE SMITH: If they have health coverage, insurance coverage through their workplace - if they're not working, obviously they're not going to have that - there's private practitioners. There is victim services if you report the crime to police, then you may be eligible to receive some funding for counselling. If you don't report it and you don't have any health insurance, then you're limited to trying to access the mental health system. I can tell you that frequently we receive inappropriate referrals from the mental health system to deal with issues of sexual violence, issues of sexual violence as a child and now they're adults, so, yes, we receive all kinds of calls.

If you're a male survivor of child sexual abuse and you are unemployed, then the mental health system is the only thing I know of.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We have three speakers left. Perhaps I was a little lenient early on, so I'm just asking the next two speakers, perhaps three or four minutes, if that's possible. Gordie Gosse.

MR. GORDON GOSSE: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I always seem to get that verbal warning before I start.

There are no sexual assault centres in Cape Breton, but we do have two very good organizations - the Cape Breton Transition House and Bea LeBlanc and Every Woman's Centre with Louise MacDonald. I'm just wondering, what kind of information do these organizations provide to the Avalon Centre? Do they provide any information to your organization about sexual assaults in Cape Breton?

MS. IRENE SMITH: I guess in a way, they do. Certainly we have done training in Cape Breton with the inner agencies. The issue of sexual violence is all around, in terms of confidentiality and record keeping and record disclosures and all of those kinds of issues. We recognize that they're in a situation that's pretty difficult because again, the transition houses' mandate is shelter and domestic violence. Yet, because there's nothing in Cape Breton, they are often forced to deal with the issue of sexual violence because there's no one else there doing it.

In terms of maintaining any kind of statistical information, we haven't had that kind of coordination, if that's where you're going.

MR. GOSSE: Yes, I was just looking for a little bit of statistical information. I'm very familiar with the services they provide - from before my role as an MLA.

My next question - I guess it's probably already been answered - the same program is not available in Cape Breton?

MS. IRENE SMITH: It is not available in Cape Breton. Again, the same program works in partnership with the three health care facilities and so we have partnership agreements that outline the responsibility of the same program, or Avalon Centre, as well as the three health care facilities. However, we have people from across the province, if they come to one of those three health care facilities, will receive the service. But we can't go to them.

MR. GOSSE: Okay, thank you. Males over the age of 13 years of age you said that there was nothing. What organizations do you refer them to?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Males?

MR. GOSSE: Yes, over the age of 13.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Again, the IWK does have a child protection team and they do have the mandate of providing services for children. Other than that, again, it's fairly limited. Private practitioners is one area that we referred to that we would refer them to. Locally, in Halifax, the Family Service Association might be another area that we would refer them to.

Again, I think that services for children in terms of counselling - short term and long term - are in desperate need of resources.

MR. GOSSE: Just one quick question. The Head Start Program in Whitney Pier that you worked with. I'm just wondering where it was located.

MS. IRENE SMITH: I'm trying to remember - that's a long time ago. We were housed at the mission, but there was a school just up the road in the Pier where we actually did work with the children.

MR. GOSSE: United mission youth centre. Okay. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Stephen McNeil.

MR. STEPHEN MCNEIL: Thank you for coming in today. Just to follow up on a few questions that Gordie had asked about the services being provided in Cape Breton. Who's presently providing services in rural Nova Scotia that you're providing them in HRM?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Sorry?

MR. MCNEIL: Who's providing the services in rural Nova Scotia that you're providing in HRM?

MS. IRENE SMITH: To a limited degree, women's centres, transition houses. I say limited degree because, again, it's not necessarily their mandate. Other than those groups - maybe with the hospitals they may be doing some work with children, but other than those groups, no one.

MR. MCNEIL: The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program - that was extended for the fourth year?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes.

MR. MCNEIL: Has there been multi-year funding put in place for that or is that up for review?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well, we have received funding from Capital Health for the current fiscal year, but there is not any official agreement that it's multi-year funding. Having said that, I think there is a general sort of understanding that it is going to be an ongoing program and we will be having some further discussions with Capital Health regarding the funding structure for the future.

MR. MCNEIL: In one of the booklets that you handed out they show the need for the service in 2001-02. It doesn't have the figures for 2003. There was a substantial increase in many of those numbers from 2001-02.

MS. IRENE SMITH: In the SANE Program?

MR. MCNEIL: Yes, same trend has been continuing?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Yes, it's actually the SANE Program. It's very interesting because what we have found is that, indeed, there has been an increase in the number of women who have reported the sexual assault and we do attribute that to the kind of care that they're getting with the SANE Program. Prior to the SANE Program a woman could go to one of the health care facilities and wait for six hours before receiving service and then have a physician who has never conducted a forensic kit do the work.

So we have now trained nurses who are specialized in the collection of forensic evidence and they're specialized in having an understanding about sexual violence and the aftermath of it. So they do the work around follow-up and they, you know, refer them to the Avalon Centre to do the additional counselling. So what we're finding is that, indeed, you know, if you build it, they will come. So the SANE Program has continued to see an increase in the number of women who are coming forward and reporting, not just for medical attention, but reporting to officials. It's a blueprint for the rest of the province, no doubt about it.

MR. MCNEIL: Yes, it certainly appears that way and not only if you build it, they will come, but I think the fact that they have the confidence in the program itself and the stability that has been provided, of course, from continuing year after year has probably been building to the fact that people are coming forward.

MS. IRENE SMITH: I also want to emphasize that there was a SANE Program within the institution itself a number of years ago and it failed. It was not successful and there was a program evaluation done of the SANE Program that clearly indicates that one of the main reasons why this program has been successful is because it's within the community and it's operating under the philosophy of the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre.

MR. MCNEIL: You had also mentioned the Halifax Regional Police Department has created a sexual assault unit specializing in that. There are ongoing talks, I believe you said, with the RCMP. Are they going to be providing a specialized unit or are they doing more investigative, for their overall, like for an officer?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well, the Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP have actually joined together, in Halifax at least, in this sexual assault squad. So they're actually working in tandem with each other with the squad here in Halifax. With the RCMP, in terms of other jurisdictions, I'm really not familiar what their plans are.

MR. MCNEIL: Is there any move afoot to, I guess, talk with the RCMP to develop a program, a sexual assault unit with their force that will deal with rural Nova Scotia?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Sure. Yes, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program has an advisory committee which is comprised of the Halifax Regional Police, RCMP, Public Prosecution Service, community-based agencies, the three health care facilities, and certainly, you know, there has been discussion about moving the SANE Program on a provincial level and the RCMP have been talking more and more about how they can work with a more coordinated response. So I think that they're in the beginning stages of reviewing some of those kinds of things.

MR. MCNEIL: And just really a final comment. One of the most, I think, disheartening parts of what we're talking about on sexual violence is when you hear somebody who will say I'm going to be really victimized by the system if I come forward and become involved in the justice system. I think that's an alarming comment when you hear that from people and when you really need to sit back and take a look at, of all of the programs which are wonderful, but if we do not deal with the system when people become involved in it, they're becoming a victim again. It's a critical point to the debate that we're talking about that we have to deal with upfront.

MS. IRENE SMITH: And maybe just to sort of provide some hope to that, I mentioned Dr. Ed Renner earlier, I believe. Dr. Ed Renner is a man who was quite responsible for receiving the initial funding to start the first sexual assault centre in Nova Scotia which, of course, is us. Ed has been working very hard in looking at how cases of sexual assault are prosecuted. He has done some long-term research and has really talked about how cases are prosecuted and the stereotypes that continue to be perpetuated within the criminal justice system.

I could really get quite involved with this discussion because I'm very inspired by the work that he has been doing, but let me share this with you and it will give you some hope as well, is that Dr. Renner has partnered with a woman from San Diego, who was the head of the sexual assault squad in San Diego and she has done some training with police officers, in particular, investigating sexual assaults. The two of them have partnered and applied to the Donner Foundation for funding to bring together eight communities in Canada to come and talk about how we can look at investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases through a different lens.

They were successful in receiving funding for this and, therefore, Avalon Centre took the leadership and talked to the RCMP, the Halifax Regional Police, Public Prosecution Service and the SANE Program, and we have put forward an application that we've submitted to a committee that will be reviewing and selecting eight communities in Canada to come and attend this very forward-thinking conference that's going to assist us in looking at how we're doing our work and how we're coordinating our work in a different way. So his work is very inspirational to me and it gives me hope that, indeed, we can work together in trying to do a better job in prosecuting sexual assault cases. So, hopefully, that will help us and help women have a better experience with the criminal justice system.

MR. MCNEIL: We can only hope. Thanks very much.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: We're almost out of time and I'm reserving the last minute and a half for my own questions if the committee members don't mind. Like others around the table, I'm really concerned that as inadequate as the services and programs that you're able to provide with the resources you have within the Halifax Regional Municipality, at least there is a core minimum of service and I'm really concerned about the lack of access and consistency of service provided in the rest of the province. Obviously, your centre is taking some lead in a province-wide way in terms of healthy public policy and training and a few things like that and, obviously, some of the community groups and agencies are trying to expand their mandate to meet some of the need, but how would you gauge the difference in level of service that a woman in rural Nova Scotia is able to access, to perhaps someone here in the metro area?

MS. IRENE SMITH: It's very difficult. I mean certainly we do see women from across the province who if they can get to the centre, they can. Again, that's that whole issue of demand for outreach work. I mean we have the demand from those communities to come out and do that kind of work within their respective communities and I just have such a great deal of admiration for the women's centres in this province and for the transition houses in this province that are attempting to deal with all of that because where else are they going to go? So the rural communities are significantly disadvantaged financially to try to cope.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: So are you getting requests from those areas that you have to turn down?

MS. IRENE SMITH: If they can come to the centre, they can have the service, but certainly we can't go to them.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay, so if they can actually travel to Halifax?

MS. IRENE SMITH: If they can travel, we will see them, yes. I mean, again, we frequently have a waiting list so, you know, they may not be able to call and come in to see us the next day, but certainly if they're willing to come to the centre in Halifax, we would never turn anyone away.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Just my last question and maybe unfair to ask you, but just who do you liaise with in the Department of Community Services? Is there a particular program branch that is responsible for these issues on delivery of service across the province?

MS. IRENE SMITH: Well, Bernard Anderson was with the province with the regional office and he's the individual whom we generally dealt with in terms of funding. He is gone and so, I don't know, Bernard has maybe been gone for a year and a half, possibly longer. I haven't talked to anybody from Community Services since he has left, but certainly in the past we have talked to the regional directors and we've talked to the deputy ministers, the assistant deputy ministers. We've met with people from the Department of Justice, Department of Health, over the years about the funding issue and about services required. As a matter of fact, I can recall back in 1997, maybe specifically requesting a meeting with the Department of Justice, particularly Victims' Services and Community Services, to talk about the fact that indeed there was a significant void in services for male survivors. The Stratton Report came out around the same time. That was when the institutional abuse was happening, or being talked about in the province. We specifically asked for a meeting to talk about the need for establishing these services, and that's the last we've heard of it.

[10:30 a.m.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay, so in the last year and a half there hasn't been anyone or any program from the department that has taken on this responsibility or provided leadership to the voluntary sector who are working on these issues, that you're aware of?

MS. IRENE SMITH: No. I mean, anytime that there has been any contact with the Department of Community Services around funding, around program needs, we have always taken the initiative and we've always done the groundwork and provided the information, but quite frankly, since Bernard Anderson has left, there has been no initiative from the department to make any contact with us whatsoever.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay. We are running overtime. Did you just want to take a minute or two and sum up, or is there any point that you wanted to make that hasn't come out this morning?

MS. IRENE SMITH: No, I don't think so. I certainly truly appreciate the opportunity to share with you the work that we do.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I know there are some questions, so what I'm going to suggest is that we take a five-minute break, and if individual members want to talk to Irene just quickly during that break, you'll be . . .

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, if I could put on the record - our witness has made a rather concerning statement about the service being provided by the IWK for child abuse. Is it possible to ask the witness to give some clarification on that, the inadequacy of that program at the IWK? I find that a very concerning comment.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is that something you're comfortable in responding to, Irene?

MS. IRENE SMITH: It's a little bit difficult because we know that through the SANE Program there have been parents who have contacted our office who have not felt that they've had access to the kinds of supports that they've needed. Really, beyond that, our work with them is fairly limited, and so I would feel it would be difficult for me to respond in a way that I think would be as informed as perhaps it should be.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you, Madam Chairman.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The Department of Health is certainly under our jurisdiction, part of our mandate, so if the committee members want to, we could discuss possibly having officials from the IWK come in our next series of committee meetings, but we can discuss that when we set our agenda in the Fall, if that's okay.

MS. IRENE SMITH: I just want to stress again that our experience with that is limited, but from contacts with parents who've tried to access services, it has not been adequate for them.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Was there anything else you wanted to comment on?

MS. IRENE SMITH: No, I just thank you very much for the opportunity.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay, not at all, we thank you. You've given us some excellent information that has certainly alerted us to a lot of issues, I think, that we both individually and as a committee might be interested in following up on, so thank you very much for your time, and please extend to your staff and board and volunteers our appreciation for the wonderful work that you are doing in this community, in particular, and across the province. So thank you very much.

MS. IRENE SMITH: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: So just a quick five-minute break, and I really mean five minutes, and we'll reconvene.

[The committee adjourned at 10:34 a.m.]

HALIFAX, THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2004

STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY SERVICES

10:44 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Marilyn More

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Could I ask everyone to take their seats, please, and, could I ask Ron Kelly and Nancy Gray to come forward, please, with their presentation on the Men's Prevention Program?

Welcome. Are you each going to do a brief presentation, or how do you want to arrange that?

MR. RON KELLY: Actually, I'll be doing the presentation this morning and Nancy will be helping me in terms of fielding questions.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Great, would you like to start, please.

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. KELLY: First of all, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be here today. It really is a good chance to sort of put democracy in action, and I really appreciate it. I'm going to keep the presentation fairly brief this morning, about 10 or 15 minutes, to leave time for questions. Basically what I'd like to do is give a brief overview of the Association of Men's Intervention Programs, a little bit about context to how we work, and go over some of the challenges and recommendations that we're facing.

I'd like to start by saying that the Association of Men's Intervention Programs started in about 1991 and we represent the six programs in the province that are primarily funded through the Department of Community Services. Each of our programs are autonomous, community based, non-profit organizations with a community board of directors. It's a fairly informal association in the sense that we don't have any paid administration for the association and we just get together from time to time throughout the year.

1

I'm just going to review the various programs and where they're located. The New Start program is in Halifax; Alternatives is in Bridgewater; the Bridges program is located in Truro; New Directions is in Amherst; New Leaf in New Glasgow; and Second Chance is in Sydney.

A little bit of the history as to why we exist. Back about 25 years ago, women in this province, and in Canada and around the world, were organizing around the issue of violence against women, and it was identified at that point that there was a need for work to be done with men, the perpetrators of the violence against women, so really these programs grew out of a community response to that. I know the New Leaf program - the one that I work with - has been in existence now for about 20 years, and what we do is we provide an opportunity for the men to come to terms with their behaviors, to understand why they're doing that and to have an opportunity to change those behaviors. So we have an issue of accountability in terms of the communities we work in.

The programs that were first up and running were, as I mentioned, the program in Pictou County - New Leaf - and the programs in Amherst and Halifax. We were up and running, all three of us, in about 1991 and then in 1992-93, Truro, Sydney and the Bridgewater programs came onstream.

The package that I handed out in the blue file - and I understand there has been a little politicking here already this morning about this, but this was quite coincidental, the selection of the blue file - I just wanted to alert you to the large pamphlet here and I'll be going through that. This was the presentation that we made to the Department of Community Services, back in May 2003, and I just want to highlight a few of the points in there. The first point is that we work according to standards of practice that we developed several years ago, and I brought a number of documents with me which I'll be handing over to the Chairman at the end of the day. I'm assuming that maybe people are familiar with the standards of practice that we've developed - you may have already seen them or maybe not. I'll hand those in later and I think this will probably come up in some of the question and answer period.

I wanted to review, on Page 3-7, some of the core services and programs that we deliver. Obviously we have services for men that include things like group counselling, individual counselling and support services; we have interview processes that men go through in determining where they're suitable for the programming; case conferencing from time to time; and then of course we make referrals to other agencies and receive information from other agencies, which I'll describe a little more later on but, as the previous presentation, I think sort of alluded to, there are a lot of interconnections that we have in our communities.

One of the other components that we have is a partner contact component. We feel it's absolutely essential that all the programs that work with men have that in terms of safety. So the main purpose of having contact with the partners or ex-partners of the men we work with is for the safety planning. We help to demystify the men's programming to make it more understandable to the women as to what kind of a program their partners or ex-partners are in. There's group and individual counselling offered, and there are partner contacts and safety checks done from time to time, and also advocacy and support services and information and referrals.

In terms of community programming we all have various components of outreach that we're involved in in terms of community education and awareness, advocacy on the issues responding to current things that are in the media, whatnot, multi-agency coordination and linkages, which I'll describe more later. We also get into a fair bit of supervision of students, either from community colleges or students who are in social work programs, and from time to time we're also involved in training for professional staff, whether it be police or CAS workers, probation people, whatever.

In addition to those core services, there are also a couple of things I want to mention. The New Start program in Halifax has done a lot of work with local minority groups in terms of First Nations, Black and immigrant communities. The New Leaf program in New Glasgow is currently running a school program that we do with the local transition house, Tearmann House, and it has been running for a number of years and, when people were talking earlier this morning about the issues, the term "prevention" really seemed to come forward, and in many senses that's what we see the school work as - and I can describe that a little more during question period. Also, we're running a parenting program up in the Pictou County area which is, again, not a core service but an example of a complementary or additional service that we're providing around the issues, because it's not only women who are affected by the abusive behaviors, of course it's the children as well.

In terms of the community linkages, on Page 3-13, I wanted to talk about some of the organizations that we do work with, and there's quite an extensive list there. What I wanted to do was - I've highlighted about maybe two-thirds of those - just mention those in terms of, that those are likely the organizations that pretty much all of the men's programs would be interacting with: Mental Health; Addiction Services; Family and Children's Services; Children's Aid; the John Howard Society; RCMP and local policing units; domestic violence coordinators; probation; parole; community-based service clubs; churches; elementary and junior schools; universities and colleges; transition house members; women's centres, family resource centres; Department of Community Services locally; doctors; hospitals; youth agencies; Victim Services; families; and sexual assault centres. Those would be the organizations that all of the six funded programs would characteristically be interacting with on a fairly ongoing basis.

The challenges that we're facing are many of the programs are facing impacts associated with long waiting lists. It was mentioned earlier that the demand for services is up and like many of the organizations that you will be hearing from, we have not received any real budget increases ever since we have been in operation, really, in the sense of being able to extend our services. So what that has meant for us is that in some cases, programs have had to put clients on waiting lists, which in situations where you are dealing with safety for people, it's not the most desirable situation. So we are attempting to deal with that but I just wanted to make the point that the lack of resources does result in that from time to time.

No. 2 on the next page is, of course, Increasing Demands for Service. I often get asked the question whether there is more violence in society today or really what is going on. I'm not sure there really is more, my sense is that as a society we are becoming less tolerant of it, we are starting to deal with it more, and more people are coming forward. With some of the changes that we have seen in the justice system, it means that more situations are coming to people's awareness.

So we are getting an increased demand for services and also, because other services are not being delivered in the way that they could be or formerly were, we are dealing with a lot of clients who have other issues. So they come to us with one presenting issue but they have other issues around homelessness or some of the issues that were mentioned earlier around sexual abuse issues.

Meeting Client Needs. Again, similar in terms of clients dealing with mental health problems. I know one of the difficulties we face in our community is if someone goes to Mental Health and they have been involved in a domestic abuse situation, they are automatically referred to our program and they don't receive the Mental Health services. Unfortunately, that does present somewhat of a problem, in terms of situations. There are also other issues in terms of client needs - especially in the Halifax area - around new immigrants, people whose first language is not English, also accessibility issues for people coming to the program.

One of the main things that we have seen - just to move on to No. 4 - is around Provincial Coverage. There has been a situation that as you, I'm sure, were aware, when I was reading the programs and where they are located, is parts of this province are covered and parts of this province are covered well and other parts are not covered at all, and that is a major issue in terms of fairness to people that they have access to all of these services and it continues to be an ongoing issue. We feel in many ways the discussion should be based around the principle that where there is a transition house, there should be sort of a corresponding men's program to deal. Just on that point I would like to mention that all of the men's intervention programs work quite closely with the local transition houses, just in terms of how they work on the issue.

In terms of Local Coverage, there are difficulties that a number of us face in that regard, too, because of constraints, people getting to programs, that kind of thing. I will speak today more from the experience I have with New Leaf because of course that is what I am familiar with. I know that we work with clients who come all the way from the Tatamagouche area, all the way down into Guysborough, Canso, up into the Port Hawkesbury area through Antigonish and right up into Cape Breton, so it's a huge catchment area. We don't travel that area, we base our program in Pictou County but the clients are basically coming to the program from those kinds of distances.

We also have a number of issues around Resource Limitations. It has been mentioned before being on a shoestring and we feel that we are in that situation as well. Many of the programs are quite underfunded, lacking staff, lacking a lot of resources and we make do in various ways but there are certainly some limitations around the amount that we have to work with, in terms of how it affects our ability to work.

I think we will probably get into a lot more, in terms of the questions and answers and I hope some of my cohorts will be able to jump in and add information. But just in summary, I wanted to mention that we really welcome more interaction with the Department of Community Services and as you are probably aware, we are involved in processes with our regional administrators right now to talk about some of the specifics that we deal with in each area. In many ways we feel that that has been lacking in the past, that we haven't had enough communication with the department, so we really welcome that, encourage that, and look forward to that.

We are working hard and we are working on a shoestring but we feel if we can continue the work and continue to talk about how we can do the work in regard to the government and other organizations, that there are many opportunities out there that we can seize upon to make this province a safer place for those who are most vulnerable from family violence. Thank you.

[11:00 a.m.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Ron and Nancy are now available for questions. I have Mark first.

MR. MARK PARENT: I will keep myself short because I took too much time last time. Two very quick questions. I'm glad you highlighted the spottiness of the coverage and I'm cheered to hear that you're working with the transition homes - I saw the director for our home, Chrysalis House, nodding. I do feel somewhat chagrined when I know that she has so much work just to keep Chrysalis House going and yet is willing to work. I guess it needs to be stated that the coverage needs to be fair.

In the Valley area, as you've noted - and I encourage you to keep noting that - we don't have proper coverage and perhaps one of the things that could come out of this session is some sort of statement about equal coverage across the province.

The question I have, I was going to ask the previous presenter, you sort of allude to it in a sense in your report, but are there socio-economic distinctives that characterize the people who use your service, or age distinctives? Is there any way of getting a handle on that or does it cut across all ages and across all socio-economic sectors?

MR. KELLY: It's a good question. Yes and no, in the sense that it does cut across all sectors and abuse is seen in all levels of socio-economic categories. What we do find is that we tend to work with clients who are maybe lower on the scale, just because of the way the system is, in the sense that a lot of the clients have other issues that they're dealing with so they tend to be more involved in the legal system. So yes, generally we find that that is the case.

MR. PARENT: And age, are there any distinctives in terms of age?

MR. KELLY: Age is interesting because what we've noticed - when I first started doing this work about 12 years ago, I think the average age was sort of in the 40s and now it's sort of in the low 30s, and I think that is because of a couple of reasons. The range is actually right from - I think the youngest fellow we are working with in our group right now is about 18, and we have had fellows in the group who are in their late 70s, early 80s, so there is quite a range. Again, the average would be sort of in the low 30s

One of the reasons that that's happening is because of the pro-arrest policy that has come through the Justice Department in the last few years. In other words when the police are called to a domestic dispute, charges are laid now and that gets someone into the system right away which is, in our mind, a very good thing because situations aren't allowed to sort of perpetuate for a number of years, so that has really lowered the age of the clients coming to the program.

MR. PARENT: Causal factors. Are there any causal factors that you know of; is there a high incidence of addiction with the clients you serve?

MR. KELLY: Addiction is a factor. We see violence against women as a social issue and that men are socialized differently from women in our society and because of power imbalances that are inherent in our society and still exist to a large extent, men often choose behaviours which are inappropriate and abusive and so basically, that is what we are trying to come to terms with. Our program is to deal with that reality.

MR. PARENT: My issue that I talked about earlier, yes. Thank you very much.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Nancy, did you want to add anything?

MS. NANCY GRAY: Yes, I was thinking that I agree with the identification of the stereotypes about masculinity in our culture and how they are problematized in the media and normalized, unfortunately. I think that that does exacerbate problems of violence that already exist, that media or glamorizing of masculine heroes who are violent, doesn't necessarily cause men to be violent but it becomes part of a normalizing factor that makes it harder for men to take responsibility for their singular acts in relationships.

Also, we notice in our program in Halifax that we have - we serve the county and of course, in this urban area there is a higher percentage of immigrant and visible minority men who would be accessing our services. We find that although there is not a higher incidence in those communities of violence than in the larger community, there are unique and very specific cultural and historical dilemmas that we need to be aware of and be mindful of in terms of addressing their need to take responsibility when often they feel that the system is not dealing with them fairly, in terms of justice and police response.

I think your question about causes opens up a lot of interesting tangents, and I don't think any of us would disagree, who work in this area, with Ron's comment that it is really - we look at the social context, but there are multiple factors to address, not just one, in terms of the men we serve.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Russell MacKinnon.

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, I believe the witness has just touched on the issue that I was thinking of, and that's with regard to different cultural barriers. There appears to be a considerable lack of understanding with regard to that, violence against women. What is your experience with these different types of issues? You've highlighted that it is an issue but not necessarily more pronounced than any other sector of society. I'm quite interested in that because I know I have a number of cases that I'm dealing with in helping particular constituents, and non-constituents for that matter.

MR. KELLY: Specifically around cultural issues?

MR. MACKINNON: Well, it's the lack of understanding of the different cultures by government officials, that's the focus. Do you have that experience as well?

MS. GRAY: I think, if I understand the question correctly, there is indeed a need to understand the barriers to service that exist because of cultural differences. If we have that understanding, then we'll be in a better position to be able to augment our services, support other agencies in the communities that may be able to address - for example, in Halifax, MISA does a lot of work with new Canadians and we collaborate with them in an advisory capacity in terms of their education and training and support of new Canadians, around Canadian laws and the transition, as a newcomer. We also have an advisory committee from the African-Nova Scotian community that supports us in our outreach and in our identification of barriers to services.

So we're very interested in partnerships with multiple agencies to address the gaps to services and barriers that we may not recognize but that we need to address to make service more accessible and also more user friendly, so that it doesn't become something that happens after a man has been charged and the family has been separated and the children have been taken away, but that we can do more preventive and educational work. That would be our hope.

MR. MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, do I have time for one more? That touches on a very important issue, particularly with immigration, because we're, perhaps in my view, one of the best countries in the world to live, if not the best. But when we open up our doors, we open up our doors to a whole range of opportunities and issues that perhaps we wouldn't have contemplated 20, 30 years ago, and therein lies, I believe, some of our problems of our own making by not properly educating new Canadians to the realities of what's acceptable and not acceptable in Canada.

MS. GRAY: I'd like to respond. I agree, and I think that we need to provide services to new Canadians, and we also need to educate ourselves in terms of the experience of newcomers and the fact of the things we take for granted in our culture, when people who come from cultures that often have rich and very different traditions than we would. For example, even around women speaking up in a public way or speaking against something that her husband would have done, that would be a real taboo for many women from other cultures.

I was actually able to attend a national forum on this issue in Ottawa last Spring that was funded and organized by the Canadian Council on Social Development. I could make their publications available to you.

MR. MACKINNON: In closing, with regard to the issue of the number of reported cases, you've indicated that perhaps there's not more today than, let's say, 10 years ago, but the fact is that it's become more public. Could you provide us with some statistics on that?

MR. KELLY: I could, yes. I wanted to mention that in terms of the number of referrals we're getting, they're certainly up. I think I was referring to the fact that violence in general in society, you can read different studies that say, in some cases it's up, in other cases it's down. The number of referrals that are coming to all our programs has increased dramatically over the past number of years. I have stats on our program specifically, and what I can do is I can get those statistics to you for the other programs as well.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I don't have them at my fingertips. Just as an example, I know at the New Leaf program we deal with over 100 new clients per year, in addition we have people who are carry-overs from the previous year, in terms of if they're on probation, say for two years. So we're basically dealing with about 150 clients or so a year. Those are the adult males that we're working with.

MR. MACKINNON: In closing, it may not be up but I would respectfully submit that it's certainly a lot nastier than it was 10 or 20 years ago. I don't know if it's because of drugs, alcohol or what, or more publicized. The severity of the abuse is nastier than I've ever witnessed. Maybe it's all the media exposure to the realities.

MR. KELLY: I would concur that there are other factors, especially around the issues that you raise around drug abuse. That's brought a whole new aspect to what we're dealing with, not that the drug abuse is a new issue but it certainly is new in terms of the variety of drugs that are being consumed.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Could I just ask that the information that's been requested of you, if you could make it available to our committee clerk, Mora Stevens, then she'll make sure it's distributed to all members of the committee. So that would be great, thank you.

Next I have Stephen McNeil.

MR. STEPHEN MCNEIL: Thank you for coming in and for your presentation this morning. Page 3-13, the roles in the community and the linkage, you mentioned in there elementary, junior and secondary schools, as well as the adult learning networks. Could you just expand a little bit on that and what's happening there?

MR. KELLY: Yes. A number of our programs around the province are involved in going into the schools and doing presentations, basically starting at about a Grade 6 level and working right up to Grade 12. Those presentations are generally done with both a male and female facilitator, and those presentations are around the issue of dating violence, violence in general, healthy relationships, those kinds of issues. They're interactive presentations so that the students really do participate to a very high degree and what we found was that the students are quite savvy around this stuff. What they really need is an opportunity to bring forth their views and opinions in a forum to discuss it and so we do use some video resources and discussion. It's a very good program.

[11:15 a.m.]

I know, just in our work we touch base with over 3,000 students a year through the school programs. To me, that's really the preventive aspect of what we're doing. Working with the men is valuable and it's important, but to actually have the opportunity to do some of that preventive work is, I think, really essential.

MR. MCNEIL: I see there the adult learning networks summer program with . . .

MR. KELLY: Yes, a number - it's not so much a formal program and maybe some of the other programs can speak to the specific ways that they work with the adult learning centres, but I know in our community we have a linkage there in the sense that often somebody will be referred specifically to our program if they're having difficulties in the learning setting, maybe directed against other female students or against female teachers - that kind of situation. We have gone in and done general presentations around the issue, just in terms of awareness.

MR. MCNEIL: Also, during your presentation you alluded to the member for Kings West, you had said some changes in the justice system were making people more aware of the program. What kind of changes?

MR. KELLY: I'm thinking mainly of the pro-arrest policy and the fact that there has been more in the media as well around abuse issues so I think in general people have a better understanding. My sense is that people feel that society in many ways is less tolerant of violence, although obviously there are examples where people can pinpoint that isn't the case. I think in general, the message is getting out there and we're starting to deal with issues that we didn't before. So in terms of physical abuse and emotional abuse I think we've sort of made some great strides. I think we still need to make great strides around the sexual abuse area. That's one area that continues to be not recognized, not dealt with enough in our society in general.

MR. MCNEIL: Part of that may be highly defective. There are regions in this province that are not being served at all. I think in both presentations today there were areas that were highlighted that there's insufficient service really being provided.

MR. KELLY: Yes. I think you mentioned rural before - you brought that out in one of your things - I guess one of the critical factors that we see around the issue of violence against women is the issue of isolation, geographical isolation. Many of the provinces find themselves in those situations and it's a very serious problem that has to be dealt with.

MR. MCNEIL: One of the challenges in so many aspects of rural life, but particularly for people who are being abused, it's the cost of getting to services and all those things. The closer to the community we can bring the services that we provide, it's obviously much better for everybody.

In the presentation that you handed out, there are six recommendations that were given to the department in May 2003, I believe?

MR. KELLY: That's correct.

MR. MCNEIL: The second one, obviously is the one that was talking about recommendations that we enter into, discussions with the department regarding opening branch offices or the provision of additional resources or programs that can occur in areas of the province not currently receiving services. We've talked about that a bit this morning, but the other five - could you give a brief report card on where we are on these six recommendations? Have any of them been dealt with?

MR. KELLY: Let me just take a little glance here and I'll ask for some help from my . . .

MS. GRAY: We have entered into regional discussions, and as well, we had a response from the Department of Community Services to the coalition report. The planning stages for change have begun in terms of consultation on a regional basis, but we haven't gotten to the stage of looking at specific pilot projects or what the next steps might be. But we're certainly in discussions that are creating a sense of moving forward together, which is hopeful.

MR. KELLY: Around the pilot projects, that's one example of where maybe some other funding could be sought in terms of federal funding. Often there are start-up funds to do pilot work and I know there are a number of communities that have come to the various programs and requested that there be some involvement to widen the areas that we do cover.

MR. MCNEIL: Thanks very much.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Nancy, did you want to respond to any of those other questions? Did you have any additional comments before we move on?

MS. GRAY: No, thanks.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Fine. Gordie Gosse.

MR. GORDON GOSSE: Thank you for being here today. I'm looking at this Second Chance program in Cape Breton and on Page 3-15 of the report, it says the Second Chance - has it given up public education? You talked about that with my colleague, in the schools in Cape Breton because the referrals were so high in Cape Breton? I notice in 1999, referrals went from 5.4 a month to 11.4 a month for 2002-03. I'm just wondering with the referrals being so high that they've had to give up their public education program in Cape Breton?

MR. KELLY: Yes, that's my understanding. The Second Chance program is the least funded program in the province. Unfortunately that's resulted in some real difficulties for them and I know they're pursuing other ways they can deal with this, but it has limited the work they're able to do. Ed was not able to be here today, but he did pass along some notes to me. I concur with what you're saying - it has limited their work. I don't know specifically how that has happened other than I know that a few years ago they were doing education programs; my understanding is that's not happening.

MR. GOSSE: That's what I thought. In the Second Chance program, because of this trend, they're saying that other organizations within the CBRM have been trying to duplicate the service, but I read here in this report, this is a trend that could result in services being offered by well-meaning but untrained individuals that would put women and children at risk. Do you feel that this is a true statement by Second Chance?

MR. KELLY: I think there's certainly the potential. I know sometimes people will try to address the issue of family violence, but it takes a very specific perspective. The thing I mentioned before around the safety to women is that we feel it's essential to have a women's component to address that concern. Sometimes programs do come up that try to deal with the issue of working with men without having that kind of component and it can result in problems. I can't speak specifically to that situation because, I'm sorry, I'm not aware of it, I can't speak on behalf of that organization. Ed Burke would be able to talk to you about that specifically.

MR. GOSSE: Okay. It says in the report here, the Second Chance program is looking at a takeover by the Cape Breton Family Services of Eastern Nova Scotia. Would you know if that's a possibility or are negotiations ongoing right now for Family Services of Eastern Nova Scotia to take over the Second Chance program in Cape Breton?

MR. KELLY: The last I heard about that was that was on hold. There were some concerns that had been raised and people were addressing those concerns. That's the latest I have on it. Nancy, I'm not sure if . . .

MS. GRAY: I spoke to Ed in May and that was my understanding as well. I just wanted to add that your point about our colleague and that program being underfunded or unable to respond to the needs is very poignant. Many of the programs are in a similar situation but I think it's even more heightened in Cape Breton where the whole island is serviced by one men's counsellor. They don't have funding for a full-time women's counsellor so they have to try to contract it out and monitor that women are getting the contact they need to ensure their safety is being monitored. We're all in a difficult position in terms of wanting to be proactive but needing to be reactive dealing with the violence that's already being reported, and yet wanting to be proactive in preventing further harm and feeling accountable to the community to let people know that the services are available. But in Cape Breton, Ed has told me that - this was months ago and I don't think it has changed - he's in an unfortunate situation of not wanting to tell people about the services because he can't deal with the wait list. So I think Cape Breton is in the most difficult situation.

MR. GOSSE: Yes, absolutely. I'm just wondering about the abuse of prescription drugs in Cape Breton - would that be a factor also in this program?

MR. KELLY: It's a huge factor. What we talk about is there are root causes to violence against women and abuse in intimate relationships, but also there are a number of other factors, and I know specifically - we talk about addiction issues, unemployment, poverty, those kinds of things - prescription drug abuse is a huge issue. We've been hearing about it up in your community and I know they're really struggling to deal with that.

MR. GOSSE: Just one more thing, if I may. In the footnote on Page 3-17, Second Chance notes that a significant number of these clients are Canada Pension Disability and experience accessibility problems due to their disability in the combination with financial difficulties. These are all factors in this program in Cape Breton as to why it is stalled and why he cannot, in the referrals that he's getting from probation, justice, community organizations, and his list is just - I'm quite familiar with the Second Chance program, I was there when it started when Ian Williker was the director, many years ago. I just want to thank you for being here today and giving us comments on this. I just wish Ed was here.

MR. KELLY: You're welcome. I'd just like to add to your question. In terms of funding, one of the things I mentioned before was that when various programs came onstream, the process to receive funding from the Department of Community Services was to submit a budget to the department. The department took the budget, reviewed it and reduced it actually and then gave us a portion of that. We worked with that and that was the budget that was put in 10, 12, 14 years ago, depending on the program, and that's been the basis of where things have gone from this point. So there has been no overall review process.

To be entering into the regional discussions is a very positive thing and I don't want to diminish it at all, but at some point we do need to look at this in a provincial way too, just in terms of what programs are receiving what, what areas are covered, and what areas need to be covered - there's a lot of potential here to bring these programs to the province and to deliver them in a fair and equitable way. I think it can be done, but it's going to require some work to do it.

MR. GOSSE: Very good. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Leo Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much for the presentation. First of all, one of the areas that you identified as challenging and perhaps an ongoing challenge. I have some degree of familiarity with medical and mental health wait times. I'm wondering if you would outline or highlight what the big impacts are when you don't have those timely referrals addressed. I'm wondering if you could give the committee here a bit of a sense of what is missing and what people are deprived of when you don't have that occur.

MS. GRAY: Well, that again opens up all kinds of concerns about accountability and safety. In all the regions, now we have heightened concern about lethality issues, which we've always had but it's been heightened now by the development of protocols, both with the Department of Justice and the Department of Community Services, protocols to deal with risk indicators for lethality. In order for us to keep up - not just with the protocols, but with the many layers of accountability to let our referring partners know when there have been critical incidents that need to be addressed and people may want to flag in terms of child protection or breach of probation order, that takes more time and more heightened attention of course, and those issues are difficult to juggle when there are so many demanding priorities.

We want to be able to operate without wait lists. We want to be able to deal in particular with the most dangerous - particularly child protection issues - immediately. However it's easy for staff, who are very committed and dedicated and highly trained, to get over-extended and then again that concern about burnout, about being able to retain staff and be able to keep up with accountability. It adds to a sense of - a sense would be parallel with the despair around how can we provide these really essential services to the community and, at the same time, ensure that we're keeping up with all the necessary levels of accountability. It just adds a heightened sense of alarm, I think.

MR. KELLY: I might add that I think often when men come into the program it's because of a domestic assault. What you find when you start working with them is that in many cases there are other issues there - often mental health issues or addiction issues - that need to be dealt with. Sometimes they get referrals through the court system for those services, but there's also a level when we encourage the men to deal with those issues. Just to be clear, the programs are about dealing with the issue of abusive behaviours. It's not really therapy in the sense and so what we have to do is work closely with the other organizations.

One of the dynamics of working with men is often that they don't deal with their personal issues and they put those aside and then that becomes a factor in how things play out for them in other life situations. I would like to see some way of addressing that and reviewing that whole issue in terms of - and we do in various communities have inter-agencies on family violence and to some extent we deal with that, but because of the restraints on various programs like mental health they have policies and procedures whereby they accept or reject clients based on various parameters. It'd be good to talk about that at some point in relation to this talk about that more from a larger sort of provincial basis, I guess is what I'm saying.

[11:30 a.m.]

MR. GLAVINE: Also, my colleague had asked about a little bit of a report card on the recommendations. I guess perhaps, more fundamentally, did the department reply and respond formally to those recommendations? They've seemed to be pretty considerable work in putting them together.

MS. GRAY: Yes, it was a very collaborative and time-consuming project, and it linked with many other recommendations of the past. We did have a response - do you remember the month? - it was quite recent, our response from the Department of Community Services.

MR. KELLY: Just give me a minute here and I'll work it out.

MS. GRAY: I think it was just January.

MR. GLAVINE: I was wondering if you could provide the standing committee a copy of the response?

MS. GRAY: Yes, I'll put that on the list.

MR. GLAVINE: Okay.

MR. KELLY: In many ways the response wasn't very thorough. This was the response to the three organizations, those being THANS, CONNECT!, and the men's association, just in terms of the amount of information that they responded with. However, having said that, I think it was understood that we were going to be entering into more detailed discussions on a regional basis - which again is good, and we're encouraged by that and we look forward to that process. However, I still think there's a need to deal with this on a provincial basis at some point to bring that back and what we are hearing from our first meeting that involved the deputy minister is that yes, in fact, there will be provincial meetings. So that's encouraging.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: If I could just mention to the members of the committee, we actually did receive a copy of that response from the department. It was sent out after we met with the Transition House Association and it would have been included in the binder that we had before the women's centres met with us, so you might want to check those binders.

MR. MCNEIL: Just for clarification, that wasn't a response to the six recommendations presented here, right?

MR. KELLY: The six recommendations were included in the . . .

MR. MCNEIL: Is part of that overall . . .

MR. KELLY: The document that we gave to the government, in their response they basically didn't respond to those recommendations. They basically just took out some information from our report and talked about their approach to the whole issue - they didn't specifically deal with the recommendations, no.

MR. MACKINNON: If this report gets any thinner, there will be only one side to it.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Have you finished your questions?

MR. GLAVINE: I just have one further question. I was wondering about what's the breakdown for the funding for each of the programs? I mean is there some shifting of dollars there? Is there one program that's now getting a bit more emphasis? What kind of developments are going on there? You've talked about sustainable funding and so forth, but as I take a look at these programs, I would see that perhaps, you know, one or two of them would certainly have a higher requirement than perhaps another and I was just wondering if you could give me a little bit of a background as to how each program is being funded and to what extent and if you could provide some figures, if possible?

MR. KELLY: Yes, we can provide some fairly up-to-date figures on that, I will do that. It goes back to that whole funding sort of history and there hasn't really been an updating in terms of how we're funded so that was based on what was happening quite awhile ago. Given the current situation with the caseloads and the areas covered and that kind of thing, that hasn't really come into the equation.

What happens every year is that we receive our funding from the department and we get quarterly cheques and then when the budget comes out, we're included in a budget line there, somewhere down at the bottom, and basically what we do is we submit a budget. Each of the programs submits a budget to the department and I know with our program we keep trying to get funding for the women's component. We submit that every year and the government sends back our budget just with the same amount. I guess what I'm trying to say is there isn't a process for discussion or negotiation around that.

So, in fact, what we do is we receive funding for our women's component from the community, the United Way funds. I think that's an important point. Like the programs, the amount of money we get from the Department of Community Services doesn't represent 100 per cent of what we work with. We get out there and try to get sources of money from other places whether it's grants or different programs. For instance, the school program that I was speaking about before is funded through the Law Foundation of Nova Scotia. The parenting program was funded through the Community Mobilization Program and the other programs do receive funding from other sources whether it's community groups, service groups in their area, that kind of thing.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I would like to ask a couple of questions now. On Page 3-14 of your submission to the Department of Community Services you talk about how your programs work in the community in terms of developing formal and informal relationships. You mention barriers to this, to the linkages, and you talk about the top-down government approach and I'm just wondering if you can give some examples or clarify that a little?

MR. KELLY: I appreciate that's only four words on a line. I think that what it's referring to is that often there are initiatives brought forward by the government that we're not involved in as much as we would like to be. The Domestic Violence Intervention Act, for instance, it has come in and is being instituted around the province and there are some very good things to that Act. We applaud a lot of that. However, we weren't involved specifically in how that was going to happen and we felt there were opportunities there for input not only from our organization, but other related organizations. I think that sometimes just the consultation process could be improved just around things like training, and we are starting to be involved more in the training. So there has been an improvement in that area that if there's something happening in the province where the perspective of a men's intervention program would be beneficial, then we are generally contacted and a representative from one of our groups will attend that and do some of the training around that.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I'm also going to ask you the same question I asked Irene from the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre. Who do you liaise with in the department, who's taking responsibility? Is any program or division providing direction and leadership to the initiatives that you're working within?

MR. KELLY: We deal specifically with Judy Jackson within the department and, to some extent, we also deal with the regional administrator and I think that relationship is being enhanced now because of the process that we're involved in, the talks on a regional basis. So we look forward to that process as well, but our contact provincially is Judy Jackson.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: My last question is sort of around some of the root causes. I mean we've talked a little bit about early intervention and the need for it and I'm just wondering from your day-to-day work and from your knowledge of the larger issues affecting this, if there were two areas, for example, that you would say early intervention here would have helped the clients and the families that you're working with, what could we have done better in the early years? What perhaps needs to be beefed up quickly in order to prevent this from being a continuous cycle of violence?

MR. KELLY: Do you want me to start that? Go ahead.

MS. GRAY: Well, certainly services for youth are vital. I think it was Irene who mentioned lack of services for young victims of