Family Violence Initiative
COMPENDIUM OF PROMISING PRACTICES TO REDUCE VIOLENCE AND INCREASE SAFETY OF ABORIGINAL WOMEN IN CANADA
INTERACTIONS WITHIN COMMUNITIES
Healthy Relationships: Women
- Program Name:
Indigenous Women's Program
- Organization/Community:
Battered Women's Support Services
- Location:
Vancouver, British Columbia
- Website:
- Goals and Objectives:
To provide a decolonizing process that nurtures the empowerment of Indigenous girls and women in relationships, reducing vulnerability to violence and increasing safety.
- Target Group Description:
Women (youth, adults, seniors)
- Program Description:
The structure of the program is a journey through the Medicine Wheel and is inclusive of west coast ceremonial practices. Methods of delivery include traditional women's teachings and practices, together with consciousness-raising through an indigenized feminist analysis of violence against Indigenous girls and women. The setting is ceremonial; starting with a smudge and ending with a smudge. The program also offers crisis intervention, counselling, support groups, pre-employment programming, court accompaniment, victim services, legal advocacy, volunteer opportunities and a Youth Engagement in Violence program.
- Program Successes/Impact:
Having increased the numbers of women who access our Indigenous Women's Program to 25% of women who access Battered Women's Support Services.
- Key Lessons/ Challenges:
The challenge of obtaining ongoing funding.
- Program in operation since:
2003.
- Program:
Ongoing.
- Date modified: