By Ann Decter (image source)

YWCA Canada created the VAW Legal Information Resource in 2014 based on a two-year training project called “Building Service Capacity: Supporting Access to Justice for Aboriginal Women Dealing with Violence.” The training project was aimed at providing legal support training for women’s shelter and outreach service staff who were serving a high number of First Nation, Métis or Inuit women dealing with violence.

Legal Aid Ontario reached out to Ann Decter, YWCA Canada’s Director of Advocacy and Public Policy, to learn more about this online resource.

Why did the YWCA decide the Building Service Capacity workshops were necessary?

Our policy research on violence and women’s safety (Life Beyond Shelter, 2009) identified the legal environment as a key area impacting women seeking to leave violence behind and establish safe lives in the community.

Creating Women’s Advocates in shelters – that is, a staff person who supports a woman throughout her entire journey from arriving at the shelter to living safely in community – was also strongly recommended in that research. In the Building Service Capacity project, we aimed to address both issues by improving violence support service workers’ understanding of how the law impacts the women they serve.

When our Member Associations reported that First Nation, Métis and Inuit women in rural and remote areas experienced the most compromised access to justice, we focused Building Service Capacity workshops on 10 communities where the majority of women (65 per cent or more) served by YWCA violence support programs were First Nation, Métis and Inuit women.

Why was it important to include a section on understanding the First Nation, Métis and Inuit context?

With a primary goal of improving access to justice for First Nation, Métis and Inuit women, the workshops needed to be culturally and locally appropriate, and contextualized in colonial histories and continuing legacies.

Although the workshops could not provide full cultural competency training, they were designed to be locally relevant – generally an Elder opened the session, for example, and a local presenter discussed the local context – and to equip participants with a basic understanding of the context in which First Nation, Métis and Inuit women live.

This was the one area of the workshops where participants’ responses were divided. Non-Indigenous participants reported that setting a historical context was very helpful and useful; for First Nation, Métis and Inuit participants it was redundant.

Why was it important to share this information as an online resource?

We wanted the information developed for the workshops to be easily accessible and widely available.

The project confirmed to us that legal information was needed in remote areas, where violence support workers who couldn’t get to the workshops might have access to the Internet.

The website also allowed us to post important workshop materials in easily downloadable and printable PDF format. Vawlawinfo.ca is mobile friendly, and compatible with all major mobile devices, including iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms, to increase convenience of access.

Online, it was important to ensure that non-Indigenous violence services staff recognize the context in which they are working and the violent systemic forces that First Nation, Métis and Inuit women experience, so we included resources on the historical and present-day context of First Nation, Métis and Inuit women gathered and developed for the workshops.

What has the feedback been like (for either the workshop and/or website)?

Overall, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, both for the workshops and for the website. Post-training evaluation and staff journals showed that participants found the content of the workshop was informed, timely, impactful, and relevant to their work.

Participants reported:

• Enhanced knowledge of the legal areas that most affect First Nation, Métis and Inuit women dealing with violence
• Expanded capacity to provide support with legal information
• Increased knowledge of resources to support their work and when to refer women to legal services and ensure they have legal representation
• Acquiring information and skills that will also support their work with non-Aboriginal women, their children and families
• Enhanced partnerships with agencies and practitioners in the community to support access to justice for First Nation, Métis and Inuit women.

Comments from workshop participants:

“What we really liked about this training was that you constantly made sure that you brought it back to what we as front line workers can do.  Often we do training and we don’t really know why we’re here or what to do with the information.”

– Sudbury, ON

“Through their attendance in court, the participants were able to see quite clearly where the gaps exist in terms of provision of legal services and supports. At the same time they were able to see where opportunities exist for potential interventions. In particular, the family court judge who presided over child welfare chambers was emphatic that she would receive written evidence of a less than formal nature, and she gave an invitation to self represented litigants and their lay advocates to seek court appointed counsel. This was extremely useful and appreciated.”

– Saskatoon, SK

“The training was incredibly important for the women from the small communities.  I can’t tell you how many times they said things like, ‘we didn’t know any of this’, including the information about Emergency Protection Orders, the availability of funding for women in crisis (from the NWT Emergency Victim Fund – even if a crime isn’t reported) and the fact that they are entitled to legal counsel in the child welfare context. The participants also commented on how useful it was to meet each other and to learn about and build (human/personal) relationships with lawyers and service providers.”

– Yellowknife, NT

Comments from website survey respondents:

After posting the website, we invited workshop participants to complete an evaluation of the online resource. 90 per cent of the respondents found the online resource clear and easy to use, well written, easy to understand, and helpful.

• “Information was repeatedly linked throughout the text which makes it easy to find and access information you need or want.”
• “I found this an excellent resource, well laid out and very useful.”
• “Very well laid out. Like that we can access both the resources from our local workshop and from those around the country!”
• “Due to the educational barriers and lack of resources in remote communities it is vital for frontline workers to have access to general knowledge of the legal system to learn and better support clients.”
• “Many of the women who come to the shelter are victims of intergenerational abuse and trauma. To support them it is important to know the political and historical context of Aboriginal people.”

Ann Decter is the Director of Advocacy and Public Policy at YWCA Canada.