Notice Board

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) presents a session discussing a new approach to curbing domestic violence.

Domestic Abuse – A shift in perspective

Thursday, January 27, 2022 from 12 to 1 p.m. MST

YouTube Live link: https://youtu.be/Oy7UGoltco0

According to the Stats Canada report, Family Violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2019, there were 107,810 victims of police-reported intimate partner violence in 2019, up from 99,000 in 2018.  Alberta has the fourth highest rate of police-reported intimate partner violence amongst the provinces. The overall rate of police-reported family violence increased for the third consecutive year, rising 13 per cent over this period.

Those alarming numbers do not take into account unreported cases, which often happen for various reasons. These may include, but are certainly not limited to: fear, shame and embarrassment of being judged, blamed or not believed. In many of these cases, individuals may also not be accessing any sort of supports.

While shelters are, and will always be, a critical service, most times when a person gets to a shelter, the abuse has increased significantly not just in number of incidents, but also in severity/risk. In order to turn this around, we need to shift our thinking and perspectives to expand opportunities around prevention and early intervention, through a holistic approach.

Safe at Home is designed to be an alternative approach to serving families experiencing domestic abuse and violence, with a focus on healing the whole family. The abusive partner is the one to move to an off-site facility or independent living; while their partner and children stay in their home and work with our outreach team to ensure their safety and help them begin to heal as well.

In this program, individuals are able to access psychoeducation (including the range of coercive or abusive behaviors, common abusive tactics and the effects that abuse has on partners and families) and ongoing supports to address the unhealthy patterns and behaviours of abuse. This men’s-only facility is a place to live and to obtain supports in the hopes of making meaningful change to eliminate violence and abuse in relationships, families and communities.

The vision of Safe at Home is that this innovative approach will help us break the cycle of domestic abuse in our communities.

Speaker: Nara Fedozzi

Nara is a registered social worker with an extensive background in community services and program development. She is very passionate about social justice, advocacy and challenging stereotypes.

Nara is originally from Brazil, where she started her career. She has over 15 years of progressive experience in various areas such as government, health and non-profit settings, with the last several years focusing on housing and social services supports. In Canada, Nara was able to expand her experience in the domestic violence sector, having worked for many years with individuals experiencing domestic abuse and violence.

Nara was thrilled to assume the role of program director with the Safe at Home Program in June 2021. Nara believes that this innovative program will advance the work around supporting individuals, families and communities in making positive changes that will help break the cycle of domestic abuse and violence.

In order to ask questions of our speaker in the chat feature of YouTube, you must have a YouTube account and be signed in. Please do so well ahead of the scheduled start time, so you’ll be ready. Go the YouTube Live link provided in this session flyer and on the top right of your browser click the “sign in” button. If you have Google or Gmail accounts, they can be used to sign in. If you don’t, click “Create Account” and follow along. Once you are signed in, you can return to the live stream and use the chat feature to ask your questions of the speaker. You can only participate in the chat feature while we are livestreaming.

Link to SACPA’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFUQ5mUHv1gfmMFVr8d9dNA.

For further information, visit the SACPA website.