Status of Women Council to create more safety planning resources
The NWT Status of Women Council has teamed up with the Gahcho Kué Mine to create new safety planning resources for women facing intimate partner violence in the territory.
The two groups announced the project in a news release on Wednesday.
Resources will include a new app, website, and print documents to help those in vulnerable situations create individual plans for staying safe in the home, when leaving an abuser, and once they have left.
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“Everyone deserves to feel and be safe in their homes, their workplaces, and their communities,” Louise Elder, executive director of the council, was quoted as saying.
“These safety planning resources will meet the need for discreet, timely, and accurate information to help women and their children stay safe – a need identified to us by NWT women with lived experience with intimate partner violence.”
De Beers, which operates Gahcho Kué, will donate $65,000 to the project. Another $25,000 will come from the NWT Victims Assistance Committee.
According to the council, development of these resources will help fulfill one of 21 recommendations made in its We Hear You report released last October.
That report was informed by conversations with women who have faced violence.
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Its recommendations included calls for consistent, trauma-informed training related to intimate partner violence, more integrated and collaborative services and supports, and the establishment of an NWT child and youth advocate.
Recommendation seven encourages service providers and women’s organizations to make safety planning more accessible.
More: Read the full report
“It will take all of us working together,” Elder told Cabin Radio at the time.
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“We as service providers, community partners, governments, relevant agencies, entities, and us as individuals all have a role to play.”
The resources are expected to be completed and distributed by the end of the year.