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Risk Assessment:
The Top of a Long List of BCIFV Activities
Penny Bain, LLM
Since our last newsletter, progress has continued on a wide
range of activities. The Institute has nearly completed the
first phase of research on victim risk assessment and safety
planning. Funded by the BC Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor
General, this phase consisted of focus groups with risk-assessment
experts and front-line service providers conducted by Dr.
Randy Kropp and Penny Bain. It has resulted in a draft tool
for intended use by service providers to enhance assistance
to women who experience intimate-partner violence. We are
grateful for the vision and support of the Victim Services
Division and for anticipated funding from the National Crime
Prevention Centre as we approach the next phase: piloting
the draft tool with service providers throughout BC, which
we hope will begin in late spring 2003.
The Institute is also planning to test tools to help police
assess risk in stalking and spousal abuse situations. The
tools have been developed by the authors of the Institute’s
Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA), primarily Dr. Randy
Kropp and Dr. Steven Hart, with funding from the National
Crime Prevention Centre and Justice Canada. We hope to begin
testing the tools with police in BC and across Canada in the
late spring.
Also with funding from the Ministry of Public Safety and
Solicitor General, Kelly Watt and Dr. Stephen Hart are completing
a review of femicides that occurred in BC in 1997. Kelly reviewed
coroner and police files for 13 femicides with the goal of
identifying risk factors leading to femicides and providing
recommendations to justice system partners. We anticipate
that one recommendation will favour fatality reviews, which
would improve protocols, practices, and the overall justice-system
response to intimate-partner violence. We expect to submit
this report to the BC Government this spring and hope it will
subsequently be released to the public. In the meantime, our
Resource Centre librarian has tracked media reports of BC
femicides in 2002 and will publish a report in our next newsletter.
Fulfilling the education part of our mandate, the Institute
has released A Newcomer’s Guide to Parenting Issues
in Canada, which consists of a video and curriculum for
ESL teachers to facilitate classroom discussion regarding
the differences between child discipline and child abuse in
Canadian law and culture. During a pilot phase, ESL teachers
responded enthusiastically, noting that they are often the
first people to whom adult ESL students turn when problems
arise. As ESL classrooms do not tend to be well-funded, we
are distributing this material free of charge. We are grateful
to the Department of Canadian Heritage for funding to this
point, and are exploring avenues for producing a version of
this resource for French-as-a-Second-Language speakers.
Another of our education projects is Assisting Immigrant
and Refugee Women Abused by Their Sponsor. Launched in
2001 with funding from the BC Ministry of Multiculturalism
and Immigration, this booklet and workshop curriculum were
well received by immigrant women’s service providers
in BC. More recently, we are seeking funding from two foundations
to update the booklet in accordance with changes to immigration
law and provide workshops to service providers in communities
outside the Lower Mainland.
Those who have been following the Institute’s activities
for some time will recall our 1999 launch of an innovative
project called The Person Within, a video, handbook,
and workshop on abuse of children and youth with disabilities.
Funded by a wide range of federal and provincial ministries,
foundations, corporations, and private donations, this warmly
welcomed video and handbook were widely distributed and the
workshop was presented about 25 times in communities all over
BC. Since the project wound down in 2001, we have heard from
many quarters that it has been missed. Of particular interest
have been enquiries from members of the multicultural community,
who have been requesting that The Person Within be
adapted to address multicultural concerns and re-launched.
Here again, we are exploring avenues for funding to meet demand.
We are also applying for funding to conduct workshops for
rural, Aboriginal, immigrant, and women-of-colour service
providers regarding child custody and access issues. The project
we propose would allow us to target the resources developed
in our first custody and access project, managed for West
Coast LEAF, and to provide workshops outside the Lower Mainland.
We will keep you posted on our progress.
On a more general note, our educational work with the Canadian
Health Network web site continues, preparing FAQs on a wide
range of topics relating to family violence. To read our work
so far, visit www.canadian-health-network.ca.
As well, you will by now have noticed some changes to this
newsletter. In addition to a new name and look, we have a
new editor: Lynne Melcombe of touchpoint communication. Lynne
has been writing media releases, opinion pieces, and brochures
for BCIFV since 1996. She brings to this new task almost 20
years of experience in journalism, conference publication,
and communications for non-profits and small businesses. We
welcome her and look forward to your feedback in our new letters-to-the-editor
section, which we launch in this issue.
-Penny Bain
Executive Director
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