The Family Violence Toolkit Project

The Family Violence Toolkit Project is a joint effort between the CHSSN and Éducaloi, a non-profit organization that provides legal information to the public in everyday language.

Funded by Justice Canada, this project involves creating a legal information toolkit and holding workshops to help service providers (social workers, counsellors, staff at school and shelters, community organizers, etc.) working with people experiencing family violence.

The toolkit and workshops aim to explain the laws dealing with family violence and the steps for navigating the legal process in family violence cases. Both the toolkit and workshops will be in English and take into account the particular needs of English-speaking communities in all regions of Quebec, including the needs of the more remote communities.

Already underway, the project runs until March 31, 2012. In the first phase, focus groups were held with service providers from four regions in Quebec: Montreal East (REISA), Outaouais (OHSSN), the Laurentians (4Korners Family Resource Centre) and Gaspé (CASA). The focus groups aimed to identify priority topics for both the toolkit and workshops. In the second phase, a series of workshops for service providers will be held between September 2011 and February 2012. In all four regions these workshops will take place in person. The workshop will also be available to the CHSSN community networks via videoconference.

Éducaloi seeks to also involve volunteers and students from the justice sector in the workshops so that they can act as resource people in the target communities beyond the end of the project in 2012.

For more information about this project, please contact Sarah Dougherty of Éducaloi (www.educaloi.qc.ca) at 514-954-3408 (ext. 3660) or sarah@educaloi.qc.ca or Kelly Howarth, CHSSN Community Education Consultant/Evaluator, by email at communityhealtheducation@ymail.com.