Grants and Contributions

Over the next five fiscal years, British Columbia will advance victim services and access to justice for victims and their families by: providing frontline staff with access to tailored supports and tools to assist them in being resilient, engaged and healthy in their work; providing ongoing specialized services for victims that are vulnerable and at high risk of domestic violence; enhancing the work of Child Advocacy Centres (CAC) across BC and promoting continued coordination and collaboration among CAC partners; delivering Indigenous focused culturally safe programming and services; delivering training on Trauma Informed Practice for police, Crown counsel, victim service/anti-violence programs, corrections, and lawyers; enhancing the skills and knowledge of frontline victim service and violence against women service providers to support victims of crime and trauma in BC; undertaking various activities to support the implementation of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights; and providing Independent Legal Advice/Independent Legal Representation for victims of sexual assault.

Activities will include implementing a training program designed to effectively respond to victims holistically; participating in training sessions including the Essential Skills for Northern Victim Service Workers e-learning; developing and disseminating educational materials for victim service workers, volunteers, frontline community partners, stakeholders, victims of crime and the public with a view toward establishing a sustainable support system for victims of crime in Nunavut; and expanding the Nunavut Victim Travel Support Program.

Activities will include implementing a training program designed to effectively respond to victims holistically; participating in training sessions including the Essential Skills for Northern Victim Service Workers e-learning; developing and disseminating educational materials for victim service workers, volunteers, frontline community partners, stakeholders, victims of crime and the public with a view toward establishing a sustainable support system for victims of crime in Nunavut; and expanding the Nunavut Victim Travel Support Program.

The project is to implement a collaborative response model to respond family violence across the province of Prince Edward Island. The objectives are to increase awareness and understanding of the risk factors associated with family violence; to enhance the knowledge and skills of both government and community members in family violence risk assessment; to increase capacity to assist victims of family violence; to improve cooperation and information sharing; and to facilitate linkages between government departments and community organizations to address family violence.

The contribution to the province will support the costs associated with the implementation of the Divorce Act official languages provision.

Planned activities include: providing additional service to high need rural Yukon community(ies); Continuing to implement Yukon's Child Advocacy Centre Initiative with a multi-disciplinary team; supporting the continuation of the Yukon Victims of Crime Emergency Fund, which provides emergency assistance and support for immediate practical needs of victims of crime; providing general and case specific legal information and legal advice to victims of crime about the Criminal Justice system; enhancing justice services for victims of crime through partnership between victim service providers and legal professionals; and supporting the alignment of Yukon services with the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and the Yukon Victims of Crime Act through outreach, training, the promotion of victims rights and the enhancement of testimonial aids.

Over the next five fiscal years, British Columbia will advance victim services and access to justice for victims and their families by: providing frontline staff with access to tailored supports and tools to assist them in being resilient, engaged and healthy in their work; providing ongoing specialized services for victims that are vulnerable and at high risk of domestic violence; enhancing the work of Child Advocacy Centres (CAC) across BC and promoting continued coordination and collaboration among CAC partners; delivering Indigenous focused culturally safe programming and services; delivering training on Trauma Informed Practice for police, Crown counsel, victim service/anti-violence programs, corrections, and lawyers; enhancing the skills and knowledge of frontline victim service and violence against women service providers to support victims of crime and trauma in BC; undertaking various activities to support the implementation of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights; and, providing Independent Legal Advice/Independent Legal Representation for victims of sexual assault.

This project will serve the needs of diverse and underserved families experiencing separation and divorce by creating a national family Self-Represented Litigants (SRLs) online curriculum that will include information related to the recent changes in the Divorce Act. The project would include the creation of 90-minute lessons related to family court legal material "Primers" that will be delivered to family SRLs via live webinars with a panel of experts who will provide legal information, explanations of procedures, and answers to participant questions.

The project consists of three online courses per year on the legal vocabulary related to the Divorce Act, Custody and Access and Child Support. The training will target employees from English-speaking provinces and the three territories (Legal Aid lawyers, court staff, court interpreters, lawyers, mediators, clerks, etc.) as well as other private stakeholders in the field of Family Law. The project also entails the development of learning tools designed to complement the online courses.

The project will consist of English legal terminology language training for judges, presiding justices of the peace and municipal judges who deal with criminal matters and who have an intermediate knowledge of English. The project will assist in increasing the quality of justice services provided to the English speaking community in Québec and contribute to improving access to justice for the English-speaking community in Québec.