Okay, thank you.
We have a project going on that's being coordinated by Beverley Jacobs, who used to be with NWAC a number of years ago. She is trained as a lawyer and is going around the province engaging the leadership of aboriginal communities—the governance, chief and council, band social workers, and so forth, and also friendship centre staff—training them and sharing knowledge to ensure that they know enough about domestic and sexual violence to respond to an initial disclosure. As you said, a lot of people say there are anti-violence services, but they don't exist in every small community and every reserve and every village. We want to make sure that these leaders have the confidence to know how to respond, and know what policies should be in place in case aboriginal women are not being treated properly.
What we're finding is that there is a massive disconnect, especially in remote communities, but even in communities that are not that remote. Even in the communities along the Highway of Tears that have suffered the terrible tragedies of missing and murdered women, which may be located only 45 minutes outside of Prince George, or Smithers, or Prince Rupert, there is a huge disconnect between them and the mainstream programs that exist for responding to violence against women.
There is also an amazing amount of energy and willingness to be involved in a coordinated perspective. Beverley is working with the communities on an individual basis, working through some of these issues doing training and knowledge-sharing, and then ending up with the development of a safety plan.
She is talking to communities and asking, “Okay, if you are a remote community, what are you going to do the next time a woman wants to call 911 because she's been beaten up, and the RCMP are 45 minutes away? What are you, as a community, going to do to deal with this?”
But you are absolutely right, there are a number of safety planning, risk assessment, and violence counselling response services available, but they need to be more on-the-ground and closer to aboriginal communities.