Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable members, I'm delighted to be here today with you to talk to you about the impacts of COVID-19 in the world of domestic violence, intimate partner violence or violence in relationships, whatever title you wish to give it.
I appreciate being invited to the committee.
Tri-City Transitions is a 46-year-old organization serving women, children, youth and men. We began as a women-serving organization. In the early 2000s, we saw that we could help women, children and youth all we wanted, but band-aids were running out, so in 2006 we began to provide services to men because domestic violence is not just a community and women's issue but also a men's issue. There are generally two parties to domestic violence.
In the world of COVID-19, our services changed somewhat from what we were offering earlier. Our services include a transition house for women and children fleeing domestic violence. We also offer counselling services for women. We offer counselling services for children, ages three to 18, and their caregivers, whether they are parents, grandparents, foster parents or whatever the caregiver definition includes. We also offer a victims service program for women, children, youth and men who are impacted by domestic violence, as well as when domestic violence becomes a criminal matter. We are also offering a mentor relationship program for men. All of these services have been impacted as a result of COVID-19.
We serve between 1,500 and 2,000 families a year. Most of our employees are local, and women make up the majority of our workforce. At the beginning of COVID, we decided to help the broader community. We opened up our phone lines to provide emotional support to whoever might need it. In addition, we very quickly moved to virtual services, whether by phone, Zoom or other technology.
What we discovered, when we originally had staff work from home, was that staff asked to come back to work in our offices. Our services were deemed essential. Our main office is such that we were able to physically distance. We have safety protocols in place. We also realized, for the health and welfare for our staff, that it was important that everybody be in the same building. We have been very successful in remaining COVID-free this whole time period.
Part and parcel of what we saw this past year, and continue to see, is the impact that COVID and the lockdowns have had on families. As I listen to everyone else speak this morning, we speak looking at the environment, but the key in all of this is family, regardless of whatever that dynamic may be.
What we saw here at Tri-City was an increase in sexual assaults. Sexual assaults involved not only adults 19 and older; we saw an increase in youth and children. That's not a surprise, given the fact that families found themselves suddenly at home together and unemployed. Perhaps both partners were unemployed, having to educate children. If there were any issues within a relationship, they would surface very quickly.
What that has also meant for people is that it has stopped women from reaching out for services. Perhaps they will reach out via email, but they won't reach out via phone because their partner is in the home or in the same room. We know that there has been a lot of domestic violence happening where people haven't been reaching out for services.
In that whole process of reaching out, one of the biggest things we saw was the lack of funding for services related to sexual assault, so we moved forward to find ways that we can find funding to help people directly when they are impacted by sexual assaults. As we move forward, we truly want to be part of the solution, because families, whatever that dynamic may be, make up the fabric of Canada.
One of our asks is to remove the barriers when we're looking at domestic violence—to remove those barriers that limit us from funding men's programs. Men, too, need to have services in order to decrease domestic violence.
With that, I conclude my presentation.