The City of Prince Albert is embarking on a bold new plan aimed at reducing violence against women.
Over 30 different outreach groups and other organizations are planning to share information and work closer together in a bid to reduce the amount of red tape that victims have to wade through when accessing services.
The “End it now” initiative is part of a much larger federal program that was started a year ago.
One of its main goals is to reduce the number of barriers females face when trying to get help.
These barriers can include finding a ride into town if they come from a rural community or reserve, getting someone to look after their kids, confidentiality and having their cases treated in a consistent fashion.
Kari Okanik is an outreach worker in the city and coordinator of the program.
She says it has several key priority areas, some of which include understanding violence against women and girls, improving collaboration and communication between organizations, making sure programs are responsive to social needs, prevention, youth social development and ensuring there’s a consistent understanding of violence.
Special consideration will also be paid to women living in rural areas and reserves to ensure they have access to the city’s services.
Okanik adds it’s the first time such an extensive collaboration was attempted in Prince Albert.
“It’s more about community-capacity building and facilitating the various agencies throughout the community and coming together to see how we can share resources and make sure that all of the employees who are supporting members of the community are as informed as possible about the issue of violence and how it affects women in Prince Albert,” she says.
She acknowledges there are similarities between this approach and the so-called “hub” or “core” community methods being used by the Prince Albert Police Service.
The police service regularly meets with other community agencies to keep abreast of the mutual challenges each are facing.
“So they actually have a great model that we can use to look at effective collaboration processes that are already occurring,” Okanik says.
Over the last year, she says Prince Albert has engaged in extensive consultation with stakeholders in the community to design the “End it now” program.